Author | J.J. Connington |
---|---|
Language | English |
Series | Sir Clinton Driffield |
Genre | Detective |
Publisher | Gollancz |
Publication date | 1929 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Media type | |
Preceded by | The Case with Nine Solutions |
Followed by | The Boathouse Riddle |
Nemesis at Raynham Parva is a 1929 detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. [1] It is the fifth in his series of seventeen novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Sir Clinton Driffield. It was published in the United States by Little, Brown and Company under the alternative title Grim Vengeance. [2]
It is a Country house mystery, a genre at its height during the interwar years. Connington possibly intended this to be the last Driffield novel, because it had shown Sir Clinton briefly crossing over to the other side of the law. Connington switched to a new series character Superintendent Ross for his next two novels, before bringing back Sir Clinton in a fresh story The Boathouse Riddle in 1931. [3] Once again he is a Chief Constable and no mention is made of the events at Raynham Parva. In the following eleven stories he never behaves so high-handedly as he did in this case. [4] The author later describe it as "rather a poor one" when assessing his works. [5]
Returning from a visit abroad Sir Clinton, recently having resigned from his post as Chief Constable, goes to stay at his widowed sister's rented country estate at Raynham Parva near a small village of the same name. He is concerned to discover that his niece has got married while he was away, not to Rex the likeable young man she has long been involved with but instead to Vicente Francia, a smooth-mannered Argentine. In just six weeks Francia is planning to take his niece away to Buenos Aires for good, taking away with her three other young English woman friends who are to accompany her to help her settle in to the new country.
Sir Clinton is called soon afterwards to give some assistance to Sergeant Ledbury of the local police on what looks like an accidental death in a car crash with the victim having gone headfirst through the windscreen. Sir Clinton quickly establishes that is in fact a murder cleverly disguised to make it look like an accident. Furthermore, the man was another South American, a vague business associate of Francia. Complicating matters is the presence of another Argentine, Doctor Roca staying at the local inn. Sir Clinton recognises him as a man who has worked for the League of Nations tackling people smuggling. Sir Clinton suspects that he has come to England in pursuit of the gang and has taken the law into his own hands and killed a man while disguising it as an accident.
When the doctor is found shot dead at a local megalithic structure, Sir Clinton is confirmed in his view that Francia is one of the smugglers, plotting to take the four young woman and sell them into White slavery across the Atlantic. He is caught in a dilemma of whether to expose Francia in England or in South America, where it may cause less scandal for his niece's reputation, ot take more drastic steps. When Francia is found shot dead in a room at Raynham Parva, it becomes clear that Sir Clinton himself has connived at his murder. Sergeant Ledbury is then steered onto entirely the wrong scent.
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. 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. Although published during the postwar era. it is set during the Second World War with German bombing raids taking place.
For Murder Will Speak is a 1938 detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the thirteenth in a series of novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield. The title references a line from Shakespeare's Hamlet. It was released in the United States by Little, Brown and Company under the alternative title Murder Will Speak.
Mystery at Lynden Sands is a 1928 detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the third in a series of novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield. It was published in London by Gollancz and Boston by Little, Brown and Company. It received a generally positive critical reception, with one reviewer going so far as to say it "may just fail of being the best detective story of the century" comparing it to The Cask and The Mysterious Affair at Styles. In A Catalogue of Crime by Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor describe it as "early but not first-class Connington".
Tragedy at Ravensthorpe is a 1927 detective novel by the British writer Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the second in a series of seventeen novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield following on from Murder in the Maze. The American edition was published in Boston by Little, Brown and Company.
The Boathouse Riddle is a 1931 detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the sixth in his series of seventeen novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield. The title is also written as The Boat-House Riddle.
The Sweepstake Murders is a 1931 detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the seventh in his series of novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield. It uses a tontine murder theme, which recurs in detective and mystery stories.
The Castleford Conundrum is a 1932 detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the eighth in his series of novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield, the Chief Constable of a rural English county. It makes passing reference to one of the earlier stories Mystery at Lynden Sands.
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.
A Minor Operation is a 1937 British detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the eleventh in a series of novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield and was published by Hodder and Stoughton in London and Little, Brown and Company in the United States. In a New York Times review Isaac Anderson noted Sir Clinton as being rare among Chief Constables in British mystery stories for his competence noting "If you have not previously met him in Mr. Connington’s other novels, this is a good time to make his acquaintance, for in this book you will see him at his best".
Truth Comes Limping is a 1938 mystery detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the twelfth in a series of seventeen novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Sir Clinton Driffield, the Chief Constable of a rural English county. It was published by Hodder and Stoughton in London and Little, Brown and Company in the United States.
The Twenty-One Clues is a 1941 detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the fourteenth in a series of seventeen novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Sir Clinton Driffield, the Chief Constable of a rural English county. It was published by Hodder and Stoughton in London and Little, Brown and Company in the United States.
Murder in the Maze is a 1927 detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It was the first of seventeen novels featuring his best-known character the Golden Age Detective Sir Clinton Driffield, Chief Constable of an English county. It takes the form of a classic country house mystery. First published in Britain by Ernest Benn, it was released in the United States by Little, Brown and Company.
The Eye in the Museum is a 1929 detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It was the first of two books featuring Superintendent Ross, a brief attempt by the author to replace his best-known character Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield. Ross is similar in type to the contemporary Inspector French created by Freeman Wills Crofts. The title is a play on words referring both to a glass eye that is a prominent part of the museum's collection and a camera obscura on the top of the building which provides a vital evidence allowing Ross to solve the case.
The Ha-Ha Case is a 1934 detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the ninth in his series of novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield, the Chief Constable of a rural English county. A traditional country house mystery, the title refers to a Ha-ha a sunken fence hidden to the naked eye common on country estates. Unlike the other novels in the series which are set when they are written, this is dated a decade before its publication in 1924. In a review in the Sunday Times Dorothy L. Sayers wrote "There is no need to say that Mr. Connington has given us a sound and interesting plot, very carefully and ingeniously worked out."
In Whose Dim Shadow is a 1935 detective novel written by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the tenth in his series of novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield, the Chief Constable of a rural English county. The title comes from a line in The Battle of Lake Regillus in Thomas Babington Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. It was published in the United States by Little, Brown under the alternative title The Tau Cross Mystery.
No Past Is Dead is a 1942 mystery detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the fifteenth in his series of novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Sir Clinton Driffield, the Chief Constable of a rural English county. It was published by Hodder and Stoughton in London and Little, Brown and Company in the United States.
The Counsellor is a 1939 detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It was published in London by Hodder and Stoughton and in the United States by Little, Brown and Company. It was the first of two novels in which Connington replaced his usual detective Sir Clinton Driffield with radio personality Max Brand. It was followed the next year by The Four Defences before Connington returned to writing Driffield novels.
The Four Defences is a 1940 detective novel by the British author J.J. Connington, the pen name of the chemist Alfred Walter Stewart. It was published in London by Hodder and Stoughton and in the United States by Little, Brown and Company. It is a sequel to the 1939 novel The Counsellor featuring radio personality Mark Brand in a brief hiatus for Connington's best-known series detective Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield. It was inspired by the real-life Alfred Rouse case of 1930. Written and set just before the outbreak of the Second World War, it was released in wartime.
The Dangerfield Talisman is a 1926 mystery detective novel by the British writer Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pen name J.J. Connington. It was his second entry into the genre following his debut Death at Swaythling Court. Notably the plot revolves around the disappearance of a family heirloom rather than a murder. The following year he wrote Murder in the Maze the first in a series of novels featuring Sir Clinton Driffield, one of the Golden Age Detectives.
The Case with Nine Solutions is a 1928 detective novel by the British writer Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the forth in his series of novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield. It was published in London by Gollancz and the following year in Boston by Little, Brown and Company.