From the Collins Crime Club archive, the forgotten second novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed 'The King of Detective Story Writers' and recognised as one of the 'big four' Golden Age crime authors.

Once dubbed 'The King of Detective Story Writers', Freeman Wills Crofts was an Irish railway engineer whose brilliant first mystery novel, The Cask, was motivated by an extended illness in 1919. Outselling Agatha Christie, and renowned for his ingenious plotting and meticulous attention to detail, Crofts followed up with The Ponson Case (1921) and no less than thirty books featuring the iconic Scotland Yard detective, Inspector French.