Christopher Bush – författare

I am going to commit a murder. I offer no apology for the curtness of the statement.

An individual taking the name ‘Marius’ boasts in a series of letters that he will commit the Perfect Murder, daring Scotland Yard detectives to catch him if they can. Ex-CID officer John Franklin and the amateur but astute detective Ludovic Travers will need to draw conclusons from a soiled letter, a locked room murder, four cast-iron alibis, and trips to France, in a feverish search for the killer and proof of his misdeeds—before ‘Marius’ can strike again.

The Perfect Murder Case was originally published in 1929. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“All the points of the good detective story are here … excitement, ingenuity, suspense, crescendo, and a satisfactory conclusion.” Observer

“And that’s not all. Somers is dead too … He poisoned himself … in the lounge!”

The great English boxer Michael France looks set to become the new Heavyweight Champion of the world. Everyone is waiting with bated breath for the forthcoming and decisive match. Ex-CID officer John Franklin is no exception – but once the boxer is apparently murdered (twice), Franklin must join forces with Ludovic Travers once more in a layered and ingenious mystery where Michael France’s closest friends are the primary suspects – yet have cast-iron alibis. The final solution involves an ingenious and plausible murder technique, a fine demonstration of Christopher Bush’s imaginative and suspenseful plotting at its best.

Dead Man Twice was originally published in 1930. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“And that’s not all. Somers is dead too … He poisoned himself … in the lounge!”

When the wealthy Cosmo Revere is killed by a falling tree, ex-CID officer John Franklin and Ludovic Travers chance to be staying in the vicinity. After examining the scene Franklin determines it was no accident. At the family lawyer’s request Franklin and Travers go undercover at Fenwold Hall, where the dramatis personae, among others, include a bewitching niece, a blustering colonel, and a vicar with a passion for amateur theatricals. Fenwold is a country house beset by secrets … and devious murder.

Murder at Fenwold was originally published in 1930. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“A cleverly plotted tale of murder … in rural England.” Dashiell Hammett

“It is always a pleasure to read a really complicated detective story and Murder at Fenwold fully deserves a place in this category.” Spectator

However thorough your search was, I’m convinced the murderer, or the burglar—call him what you will—is still in the house.

Little Levington Hall, the site of the seasonal house party in Dancing Death, is owned by Martin Braishe, inventor of a lethal gas. Unfortunately for Braishe and his houseguests, their fancy-dress ball might more accurately be described as a fancy-death ball. After the formal festivities have taken place place, nine guests remain at the snowbound Hall, along with a retinue of servants. It is at this point that dead bodies most inconveniently begin to turn up at Little Levington Hall, like so many unwanted Christmas presents. It will be up to the eccentric Ludovic Travers, with his companions John Franklin and Superintendent Wharton of Scotland Yard, to solve this most intricate and ingenious of Yuletide mysteries.

Dancing Death was originally published in 1931. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“If you don’t think I’m taking a liberty in saying so, my opinion is that he was knocked down first and hanged after!”

Ludovic Travers starts an investigation of unnatural death by means of an automobile mishap on a rural road. His associate Superintendent Wharton is investigating a suspicious suicide by hanging at the nearby village of Pawlton Ferris. When the supposed suicide turns out to be a case of murder, Travers realizes he recognizes the corpse, despite attempts to alter the dead man’s appearance. The plot is thickened by a strange letter sent to Travers by the eccentric and musical Claude Rook. As Travers and Wharton are drawn further into the investigation of the murder, they begin to fit more and more pieces into a weird puzzle, unlocking the strange secret of the dead man’s music.

Dead Man’s Music was originally published in 1931. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

Travers looked down at the face. On the collar was a red patch and a long streak. Across the throat was a gash.

Two rival London newspaper tycoons are at daggers drawn. But when Sir William Griffith’s corpse turns up in a hamper, his throat cut from ear to ear, the enmity appears to turned deadly. Or is it instead a case of domestic terrorism? Superintendent Wharton of the Yard brings Ludovic Travers into the case and together they investigate a gallery of additional suspects: explorer Tim Griffiths; Sir William’s financial secretary, Bland, and his wife; local vicar Reverend Cross; an archetypally sinister butler … and an intrusive crime reporter, who always seems to find himself in the thick of a crime scene. Wharton and Travers come to believe they have identified their murderer – but how can they break a cast-iron alibi?

Cut Throat was originally published in 1932. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“It was some sort of sudden death?”

Travers made a face. “It certainly was sudden. I’ll say it’s ten to one it was murder.”

Ludovic Travers is asked by an old school friend, Henry Dryden, to investigate the cause of the agitation in the formerly placid village of Bableigh – not to mention the gunshot death, ruled an accident, of Dryden’s friend Tom Yeoman, the local impoverished squire. Even after Travers and ex-CID associate John Franklin arrive in Bableigh, however, the spell of unfortunate village “accidents” continues. And now there are rumours of a witches’ coven, right in the heart of the community… Can Ludo and Franklin solve the mystery of the strange malaise that has afflicted the unfortunate Bableigh, and return the community to its previous state of pastoral grace?

The Case of the Unfortunate Village was originally published in 1932. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“Let us know when you’re dead!”

Ludovic Travers had known it was a publicity stunt, all that business about the anonymous threatening letters. He expected a hoax but what he found was two men lying dead on the floor of Crewe’s bedroom. To be confronted with murder at eight in the morning was no joke. Norris, the quiet, steady Inspector of Scotland Yard, certainly didn’t think so, although during the weeks he and Travers sought to puzzle it all out, he many times remarked, “It was on April Fool’s Day, don’t forget that.” This is one of Bush’s masterpieces – an intricate and baffling country house murder mystery.

The Case of the April Fools was originally published in 1933. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

Old Hunt slithered in the most amazing way and then fell to the floor. He lay between the seats, face upwards.

Ludovic Travers is on his way by train from Toulon to Marignac. Along for the ride are several suspicious characters, two of whom die en route. Although the murders seem at first unrelated, Travers is able to prove the connection between the two, while diverting the eye of official suspicion from himself. After Travers learns that one of the victim’s country house has been burgled soon after the murderous act, the inquisitive sleuth decides to look into the case himself when he returns to England. Soon Travers, his Isotta now replaced with a Bentley, is working in tandem with Superintendent Wharton to solve one of the strangest cases which he has yet encountered. It is one in which some of the darkest of human impulses are exposed, and a twist is guaranteed in the tail.

The Case of the Three Strange Faces was originally published in 1933. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“Have you heard the news, sir?” the waiter said.

“I’m afraid I haven’t. What is it?”

“Plumley’s dead, sir. Henry Plumley. We just got the news over the ’phone. Suicide they say it was. Anything else you want, sir?”

Out-of-print for over nine decades and one of the rarest classic crime novels from the Golden Age of detective fiction, The Plumley Inheritance, first of the Ludovic Travers mysteries, is now available in a new edition by Dean Street Press.

When the eccentric magnate Henry Plumley shockingly collapses and dies, a great adventure begins for Ludovic Travers, the dead man’s secretary, and his comrade Geoffrey Wrentham – a romp with not only mystery and mischief in the offing but murder too.

The Plumley Inheritance was originally published in 1926. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“Send someone here quick. There’s been a murder!”

Mr Lewton is dead. Stabbed through the back, no possibility of suicide—and no sign of a knife either. The deceased made a phone call summoning a doctor immediately before his own death. And the servant who supposedly reported the murder wasn’t even at the scene of the crime, and denies all knowledge. These are among the bizarre opening features of a classic labyrinthine whodunit from a master of the genre—an adventure into which master sleuth Ludovic Travers must plunge himself. This is a tale of cake and conundrum in which every suspect has a water-tight alibi. But trust Travers to solve a virtually unbreakable mystery.

The Case of the 100% Alibis was originally published in 1934. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“Seldom, if ever, has the alibi problem been handled so deftly or in such an entertaining manner as Mr. Bush has done in this grade A yarn,”--New York Times

Travers turned to Wharton. “I ask you, George, as a man of the world—do schoolmasters and mistresses have souls full of glamour and passion and intrigue? Are they torn by the same emotions that rend people like us?”

At first the old schoolmaster’s poisoning was judged a suicide. But there were too many suspicious circumstances to satisfy Inspector Wharton of Scotland Yard. Why, for instance, had the dead man clung to a large book as he expired? And where is Flint, the school caretaker? Wharton, accompanied as ever by inspired amateur sleuth Ludovic Travers, journey to the grim pile of Woodgate Hill school to find a shocking and unpredictable solution to this murder . . . and then another.

The Case of the Dead Shepherd was originally published in 1934. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“Thoroughly engrossing, well written and full of legitimate puzzlement.”—Dorothy L. Sayers