Common Sense Is All You Need

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Common Sense Is All You Need
Common Sense Is All You Need.jpg
Author J.J. Connington
Country United Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Series Sir Clinton Driffield
GenreDetective
Publisher Hodder and Stoughton
Publication date
1947
Media typePrint
Preceded byJack-in-the-Box 

Common Sense Is All You Need is a 1947 detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. [1] [2] [3] It was his last novel, published by Hodder and Stoughton the year of his death, and featured his regular character Sir Clinton Driffield. It was the seventeenth in a series of novels featuring Driffield, a Chief Constable of a rural English county, published during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. [4] Although published during the postwar era. it is set during the Second World War with German bombing raids taking place.

Contents

Synopsis

During a Paper Salvage Drive to help the British war effort, a librarian is found hanging in the small building where he garaged his car which is laid up due to the shortage of petrol. What at first seems a clear case of suicide is disproved by the criminologist called in to deal with the forensic evidence, who informs the officious Inspector that "common sense is all you need" to work out it is in fact murder.

The dead man was deep in debt with a younger wife with many male admirers, and had been involved with the efforts to sort out valuable editions of books and documents that may have been collected for salvage. Is it possible that something the dead man laid his hands on has led to his death? Sir Clinton Driffield steps in to direct the case to a satisfactory conclusion.

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Sir Clinton Driffield is a fictional police detective created by the British author J.J. Connington. He was one of numerous detectives created during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, making his first appearance in Murder in the Maze in 1927. He appeared in four subsequent novels by 1929 when Connington apparently wished to write him out following Nemesis at Raynham Parva. However, his replacement Superintendent Ross failed to gain the same level of popularity over two novels and Sir Clinton returned in the 1931 mystery The Boathouse Riddle. He went on to appear in a further eleven novels. The last entry Common Sense Is All You Need was published the year of Connington's death in 1947 and is set in wartime Britain.

References

  1. Reilly p.347
  2. Hubin p.90
  3. Kramer p.180
  4. Murphy p.152

Bibliography