The proposed venture seemed irresistible. Obtain a former Atlantic luxury liner due for demolition and adapt it for gentle holiday cruising around the British Isles. Register the venture in France and run luxury gambling rooms on board. Several men become involved in launching this scheme which appears to prosper until one of them is murdered.

Crofts displays all his considerable skills in creating all this, timetabling and detailing all aspects of this vast enterprize, providing mini travelogues along the way and contriving an almost fool-proof alibi.

Having surveyed most of Freeman Wills Crofts' output in recent years, I would not argue with anyone who rated this his best book.

A company manufacturing rapid hardening cement faces bankruptcy. A rival company, based on the Isle of Wight, seems to have a better product and to be monopolizing the market. An attempt to discover the rival company's secret formula miscarries when a night watchman is accidentally killed. The secret is discovered, but attempts to utilize it and to fake the cause of the night watchman's death seem to bring more problems than the initial threat of bankruptcy.

This is the situation that Crofts creates in the early part of this superb novel, and which he sets his Chief Detective French to detect. All the writer's best attributes are displayed here: meticulous plot construction, the time-tabling and checking of alibis, the familiarity with chemical processes, and the fine descriptions of locations on and around the Isle of Wight. What is not here is the "love interest" that Crofts usually felt obliged to incorporate into his novels. This one is pure detective fiction. Most of the tricks used by mystery writers of the time are here. There's an additional one that is new to me. It involves substituting sugar bowls in the dining car of a train in order to obtain a set of keys.

This 1934 mystery is certainly one of this author's best. Every page seems to crackle with the excitement generated by the committing and uncovering of crimes.

Author Freeman Wills Crofts acknowledges in a brief forward that this 1938 detective story is a two-fold experiment. It is firstly an attempt to tell the story from two perspectives. During the first part of the book we accompany an accomplice in a crime of murder. During the remainder we accompany Detective Inspector French as he unravels the crime. It is secondly an attempt to present the defense case for someone who finds the temptation to assist with a murder to be more than he can resist.

More than 60 years later, readers will probably find the second attempt to be the more successful and interesting part of the twofold experiment. It was a brave experiment to make in the 1930s, when the notion that crime does not pay was still one of the understood rules in the game of detective fiction.

Crofts allows us to understand the temptation to commit crime by presenting the book's principal character, George Surridge. A middle-aged director of a zoo, unhappy in his marriage, and facing increasing debts, his situation becomes desperate when he falls in love with Nancy Weymore, who represents his only prospect of happiness. He lives dangerously for some time, trusting that a legacy that will come to him after the death of an elderly aunt will allow him to escape to happiness.

The aunt dies, he is named as legatee, and then comes the most unexpected shock. The shock occurs half way through the book, and the suspense leading up to it is as skillfully wrought as in any Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Crofts' sleuth, Inspector French, takes centre stage thereafter, and for once his forming and checking of theories, his alibi-cracking, and his time-table measuring seems less interesting than usual.

Nevertheless, this is certainly one of Crofts' best stories. I would not argue with readers or reviewers who might think it deserves a five star rating.

This author doesn't cheat his readers of clues, even though the solutions to his murder mysteries may involve ingenious mechanical devices that only an engineer could dream up. Inspector French, who first appeared in "Inspector French's Greatest Case" in 1925, is definitely an engineer at heart.

This particular fictitious Chief Inspector of New Scotland Yard starred in a total of thirty mysteries from 1925 through 1957, many of them involving ships, trains (Crofts was an Irish railroad engineer), intricate time-tables, and supposedly unbreakable alibis.

"Antidote to Venom" (1938) is no exception. Inspector French must dredge up every scrap of physical evidence to recreate the fiendishly clever gizmo that was used to murder an eminent professor of pathology. He must smash the villain's alibi, and build the time-table that puts him near his victim at the time of death. He must also figure out how a poisonous Russell's viper escaped from its supposedly sealed display case at the Birmington Zoo.

The difference between this Inspector French mystery and others I've read is that most of the story is told by the murderer's accomplice. There is no mystery as to who killed the old professor. "Antidote to Venom" is a 'howdunit' rather than a whodunit.

The narrator is George Surridge, the middle-aged Director of the Birmington Zoo. He is a man trapped in a loveless marriage, who belatedly discovers the woman of his dreams. His reasons for helping a murderer are gradually constructed through the first half of the novel, and the author skillfully drew me in to sympathizing with him. I was actually sorry when Inspector French entered the case. I knew from my previous reading of Crofts' finely constructed mysteries, that George Surridge was doomed.

"Antidote to Venom" has a rather old-fashioned, contrived ending, but don't let that prevent you from reading this mystery author who Raymond Chandler called, 'the soundest builder of them all.'

"... he had found that nothing so cleared up his views of a case as the fixing of the duration to each incident." - The Box Office Murders, Chapter 4.

Fixing duration, checking an alibi against maps and clocks, the times of tides, train timetables - all these procedures are meat and drink to Freeman Wills Crofts' police officer, Inspector French of Scotland Yard's Criminal Investigation Department.

The serial killing of several young women is the case he is working on in this 1929 book. All the women are ticket sellers in cinemas. When one of them consults French to enlist his aid and is subsequently found dead, floating in the English Channel, by a fisherman, French accelerates his investigation.

Bringing all the above checking procedures into play, he is able to pinpoint the spot along the coast where the body was dumped from a stolen boat. And so the case continues, every element of the unsolved mystery logically considered and explored to the end.

Less ambitious and a little shorter than most of Crofts' other detection novels, this one is nevertheless recommended for its ingenuity and readability to all those who like to collect samples from "The Golden Age of Detective Fiction".

"... he had found that nothing so cleared up his views of a case as the fixing of the duration to each incident." - The Box Office Murders, Chapter 4.

Fixing duration, checking an alibi against maps and clocks, the times of tides, train timetables - all these procedures are meat and drink to Freeman Wills Crofts' police officer, Inspector French of Scotland Yard's Criminal Investigation Department.

The serial killing of several young women is the case he is working on in this 1929 book. All the women are ticket sellers in cinemas. When one of them consults French to enlist his aid and is subsequently found dead, floating in the English Channel, by a fisherman, French accelerates his investigation.

Bringing all the above checking procedures into play, he is able to pinpoint the spot along the coast where the body was dumped from a stolen boat. And so the case continues, every element of the unsolved mystery logically considered and explored to the end.

Less ambitious and a little shorter than most of Crofts' other detection novels, this one is nevertheless recommended for its ingenuity and readability to all those who like to collect samples from "The Golden Age of Detective Fiction".

"He would not have admitted it to anyone, but he still retained his boyish delight in railways". So thinks one of the characters in Freeman Wills Crofts' 1946 crime novel "Death Of a Train". Ironically, the character is about to be the only witness to a brilliantly described death of a train.

The crime for Chief Detective Inspector French to investigate in this novel is sabotage. In July 1942 the British Prime Minister announces to his War Cabinet that he has received the most urgent request for vital supplies of radar valves from the Commander-in-Chief of the North African Campaign and from the O. C. Home Forces. Existing stocks, however, are sufficient to meet only one of the requests. It is essential that the enemy should be prevented from knowing how short is the supply of these vital stocks, which request will be met, and how the stocks will be transported.

So is created the Train, whose birth, life, and death are brilliantly depicted in the first half of the novel. Less impressive is the second half of the book, in which French adopts various detecting methods, inspired by fictional detectives of earlier generations such as Dr Thorndyke and Sherlock Holmes, to identify and apprehend the Train's killers.

This is one of Crofts' most ambitious books. The plotting and planning, as well as the first hand knowledge of steam locomotives, reflect his thirty years as a railway engineer. The list of characters ranges from the British prime minister to the lady who cleans "the moving parts, the mass of rods slung outside the wheels at each side of the framing, the spring links, couplings, axle-boxes and such like".

There are at least two unconvincing actions in the narrative. A young female witness too readily agrees to be taken by strangers to observe and identify a suspect. French does not hesitate to gain the support of a medico by "letting him in on the secret", when, for all he knows, the medico might be one of the enemy.

Quaint, engrossing, perhaps slightly flawed, this is one of Crofts' finest tributes to the romance of steam locomotives.

"He would not have admitted it to anyone, but he still retained his boyish delight in railways". So thinks one of the characters in Freeman Wills Crofts' 1946 crime novel "Death Of a Train". Ironically, the character is about to be the only witness to a brilliantly described death of a train.

The crime for Detective Chief Inspector French to investigate in this novel is sabotage. In July 1942 the British Prime Minister announces to his War Cabinet that he has received the most urgent request for vital supplies of radar valves from the Commander-in-Chief of the North African Campaign and from the O. C. Home Forces. Existing stocks, however, are sufficient to meet only one of the requests. It is essential that the enemy should be prevented from knowing how short is the supply of these vital stocks, which request will be met, and how the stocks will be transported.

So is created the Train, whose birth, life, and death are brilliantly depicted in the first half of the novel. Less impressive is the second half of the book, in which French adopts various detecting methods, inspired by fictional detectives of earlier generations such as Dr Thorndyke and Sherlock Holmes, to identify and apprehend the Train's killers.

This is one of Crofts' most ambitious books. The plotting and planning, as well as the first hand knowledge of steam locomotives, reflect his thirty years as a railway engineer. The list of characters ranges from the British prime minister to the lady who cleans "the moving parts, the mass of rods slung outside the wheels at each side of the framing, the spring links, couplings, axle-boxes and such like".

There are at least two unconvincing actions in the narrative. A young female witness too readily agrees to be taken by strangers to observe and identify a suspect. French does not hesitate to gain the support of a medico by "letting him in on the secret", when, for all he knows, the medico might be one of the enemy.

Quaint, engrossing, perhaps slightly flawed, this is one of Crofts' finest tributes to the romance of steam locomotives.

Readers of classic British Detective Fiction can be grateful to the English publishers the House of Stratus. During 2001 they republished the 35 crime novels by Freeman Wills Crofts. Of course, browsing in second-hand book shops is always a fun pastime, and in such places in recent years I have chanced on two Crofts' titles. Now, however, all of them are available, in a uniform edition, for internet ordering.

"Enemy Unseen" was written during World War Two. Detective Inspector French of Scotland Yard is wondering "why war conditions had not been more widely taken advantage of by criminals". Just such a crime then comes to his notice. Coils of wire and boxes of hand grenades are reported missing from a Home Guard ammunition store at a Cornish coastal village. Soon after, an explosion on the beach nearby kills an old man, and later there is a similar murder.

This is a grimmer, more static mystery than Crofts usually provided, no doubt reflecting the harsh "war conditions" in which it is set and written. One of the characters is a writer of detective fiction. He provides illuminating views of the craft of which Crofts was a master.

..."Enemy Unseen" was written during World War Two. Detective Inspector French of Scotland Yard is wondering "why war conditions had not been more widely taken advantage of by criminals". Just such a crime then comes to his notice. Coils of wire and boxes of hand grenades are reported missing from a Home Guard ammunition store at a Cornish coastal village. Soon after an explosion on the beach nearby kills an old man, and later there is a similar murder.

This is a grimmer, more static mystery than Crofts usually provided, no doubt reflecting the harsh "war conditions" in which it is set and written. One of the characters is a writer of detective fiction. He provides illuminating views of the craft of which Crofts was a master.

Freeman Wills Crofts wrote his detective stories during the first half of the twentieth century. His readership at the time would have clear recollections of childhood hours spent with toy trains, Meccano sets and Chemistry sets. Much of the enjoyment in constructing and experimenting provided by these childhood pastimes may be found by adult readers of his books, then and now.
This one is in the Chemistry set category. At the heart of the mystery is a process for desalinating sea water. This one is also an attempt by Crofts to try his hand at the "English Country House" murder mystery. All the stock characters are there - the unpopular host, the troubled wife and her secret lover, the nephew, the secretary, the laboratory worker, the butler, an aggrieved sacked employee, the chauffeur, the gardener, and a full staff of female domestics. Crofts' attempt is better written than most, and just as baffling as the best of them. His regular sleuth, Chief Detective Inspector French, is provided with an assistant named Rollo. This allows for a little raillery and sarcasm, as in this comment by French, "You'll find, Mr Inspector Rollo, that if you are to succeed at this game, you'll need all the wits you've got - probably more". Readers too will need all the wits they've got to solve the mystery in this fine 1942 novel, newly reprinted by the House of Stratus.

Freeman Wills Crofts wrote his detective stories during the first half of the twentieth century. His readership at the time would have clear recollections of childhood hours spent with toy trains, Meccano sets and Chemistry sets. Much of the enjoyment in constructing and experimenting provided by these childhood pastimes may be found by adult readers of his books, then and now.

This one is in the Chemistry set category. At the heart of the mystery is a process for desalinating sea water. This one is also an attempt by Crofts to try his hand at the "English Country House" murder mystery. All the stock characters are there - the unpopular host, the troubled wife and her secret lover, the nephew, the secretary, the laboratory worker, the butler, an aggrieved sacked employee, the chauffeur, the gardener, and a full staff of female domestics. Crofts attempt is better written than most, and just as baffling as the best of them.

His regular sleuth, Chief Detective Inspector French, is provided with an assistant named Rollo. This allows for a little raillery and sarcasm, as in this comment by French, "You'll find, Mr Inspector Rollo, that if you are to succeed at this game, you'll need all the wits you've got - probably more".

Readers too will need all the wits they've got to solve the mystery in this fine 1942 novel, newly reprinted by the House of Stratus.

Freeman Wills Crofts was an Irish railway engineer. His entrance into the Golden Age of Detective Fiction occurred in 1920, concurrently with Agatha Christie's. Much as they admired each other's work, they provided different types of mystery fiction. Don't expect the cosy country house murder, the family feuds, the focus on personal relationships in "Golden Ashes". Expect instead an engineer's approach to creating and solving mysteries. The mystery to be solved is not usually the identity of a murderer. The mystery instead might be a clever fraud, an ingenious smuggling racket, or a blackmail scheme. In "Golden Ashes" an insurance fraud is suspected and investigated. Crofts' sleuth is a Scotland Yard man, Inspector French. For most of the book we follow French with his dogged, "leave no stone unturned" investigation. Every possible witness is questioned. In the 1940s, there were of course plenty of servants, railway staff, and lift operators to swell the ranks of possible witnesses. Every suspect is watched. Every route is measured. Every alibi is timed and tested. Strangely enough, this apparently boring and unimaginative approach makes fascinating reading. Crofts perfected to so-called "time-table" mystery, and "Golden Ashes" displays this genre admirably. Over the years I have read and re-read all Crofts' mysteries. "Golden Ashes" is as good as any of them. If you might enjoy what used to be called "a good yarn", well crafted and immensely readable, then I recommend it.

Freeman Wills Crofts was an Irish railway engineer. His entrance into the Golden Age of Detective Fiction occurred in 1920, concurrently with Agatha Christie's. Much as they admired each other's work, they provided different types of mystery fiction. Don't expect the cosy country house murder, the family feuds, the focus on personal relationships in "Golden Ashes". Expect instead an engineer's approach to creating and solving mysteries. The mystery to be solved is not usually the identity of a murderer. The mystery instead might be a clever fraud, an ingenious smuggling racket, or a blackmail scheme. In "Golden Ashes" an insurance fraud is suspected and investigated. Crofts' sleuth is a Scotland Yard man, Inspector French. For most of the book we follow French with his dogged, "leave no stone unturned" investigation. Every possible witness is questioned. In the 1940s, there were of course plenty of servants, railway staff, and lift operators to swell the ranks of possible witnesses. Every suspect is watched. Every route is measured. Every alibi is timed and tested. Strangely enough, this apparently boring and unimaginative approach makes fascinating reading. Crofts perfected to so-called "time-table" mystery, and "Golden Ashes" displays this genre admirably. Over the years I have read and re-read all Crofts' mysteries. "Golden Ashes" is as good as any of them. If you might enjoy what used to be called "a good yarn", well crafted and immensely readable, then I recommend it.

Detective fiction writers Agatha Christie and Freeman Wills Crofts both had popular successes in the mid-1920s. Crofts introduced his sleuth, Inspector Joseph French of Scotland Yard in this 1925 book. Already in his 50s (he refers to his eldest child having been killed in World War 1), French proved to be so popular that Crofts included him in all his detective fiction for a further thirty years.

The book's title probably continues to attract first time readers to Crofts' work. Readers who like to sample books from the "Golden Age of British Detective Fiction (1920-1940) will find strengths and weaknesses. The book displays Crofts' "puzzle solving" formula admirably. A problem occurs, a theory is formulted, testing follows, each discovery likely to form a "spring board" to further discovery. If a dead-end is encountered, another theory is formulated, etc. Crofts also keeps us in company with Inspector French throughout the whole book.

If these are some of the strengths, then a few weaknesses must be acknowledged. Expect old-fashioned crimes and old-fashioned criminals. The crime and murder here, popular in detective fiction of the time, involved the theft of diamonds. One of the criminal's skills, also popular at the time, was the devising and use of a code. Both of these elements will appear dated and quaint to C21st readers.

So is it Inspector French's greatest case? Reading the thirty or so other books in which he features will give you the answer, together with many hours of enjoyment.

Detective fiction writers Agatha Christie and Freeman Wills Crofts both had popular successes in the mid-1920s. Crofts introduced his sleuth, Inspector Joseph French of Scotland Yard in this 1925 book. Already in his 50s (he refers to his eldest child having been killed in World War 1), French proved to be so popular that Crofts included him in all his detective fiction for a further thirty years.

The book's title probably continues to attract first time readers to Crofts' work. Readers who like to sample books from the "Golden Age of British Detective Fiction (1920-1940) will find strengths and weaknesses. The book displays Crofts' "puzzle solving" formula admirably. A problem occurs, a theory is formulted, testing follows, each discovery likely to form a "spring board" to further discovery. If a dead-end is encountered, another theory is formulated, etc. Crofts also keeps us in company with Inspector French throughout the whole book.

If these are some of the strengths, then a few weaknesses must be acknowledged. Expect old-fashioned crimes and old-fashioned criminals. The crime and murder here, popular in detective fiction of the time, involved the theft of diamonds. One of the criminal's skills, also popular at the time, was the devising and use of a code. Both of these elements will appear dated and quaint to C21st readers.

So is it Inspector French's greatest case? Reading the thirty or so other books in which he features will give you the answer, together with many hours of enjoyment.

Albert Reeve, money lender and blackmailer, is found dead in his house by one of his clients, Tony Meadows. When subsequently Reeve's house is partly destroyed by fire, Tony is charged with the blackmailer's murder. Among those hoping desperately to prove Tony's innocence is his sister, and she seeks the assistance of Inspector French. In his 1941 "curl up by the fire and enjoy a good detective yarn" production, Freeman Wills Crofts leads his reader from a presentation of the crime, on to the accusation of the wrong man, through an investigation of all suspects, to the breaking of an apparently cast-iron alibi, and to the final "thriller" capture. Young Tony is a budding detective fiction writer, and Freeman Wills Crofts throws in along the way a few insights into the craft of which he himself was a master. English publishers, The House of Stratus, have republished this novel in the year 2000 as part of their complete edition of the detective fiction works of Freeman Wills Crofts. The format, the art deco cover art work, and the print and paper quality are uniformly excellent. It seems strange that, in presenting these minor classics from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, the House of Stratus does not provide a first publication date.

Albert Reeve, money lender and blackmailer, is found dead in his house by one of his clients, Tony Meadows. When subsequently Reeve's house is partly destroyed by fire, Tony is charged with the blackmailer's murder. Among those hoping desperately to prove Tony's innocence is his sister, and she seeks the assistance of Inspector French.

In his 1941 "curl up by the fire and enjoy a good detective yarn" production, Freeman Wills Crofts leads his reader from a presentation of the crime, on to the accusation of the wrong man, through an investigation of all suspects, to the breaking of an apparently cast-iron alibi, and to the final "thriller" capture. Young Tony is a budding detective fiction writer, and Freeman Wills Crofts throws in along the way a few insights into the craft of which he himself was a master.

English publishers, The House of Stratus, have republished this novel in the year 2000 as part of their complete edition of the detective fiction works of Freeman Wills Crofts. The format, the art deco cover art work, and the print and paper quality are uniformly excellent. It seems strange that, in presenting these minor classics from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, the House of Stratus does not provide a first publication date.