Dover: The Collected Short Stories
A Dover Mystery, Book 11
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Detective Chief Inspector Wilfred Dover is the most idle and avaricious hero in all of crime fiction. Why should he even be bothered to solve the case?
Editorial reviews:
“Something quite out of the ordinary.” Daily Telegraph
“Joyce Porter is a joy… Dover is unquestionably the most entertaining detective in fiction.” Guardian
“Plotted with the technique of a virtuoso.” New York Times
“Wonderfully funny.” Spectator
“Dover is wildly, joyously unbelievable; and may he remain so for our comic delight.” Sun
“You will be fascinated by his sheer dazzling incompetence. Porter has a keen eye, a wicked sense of comedy, and a delightfully low mind.” Harper’s
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Scotland Yard's Inspector Wilfred Dover may be the least heroic hero in mystery fiction. Grossly overweight and unfailingly surly, Dover insults those around him (especially his patient underling, Sergeant MacGregor) while also committing gaffes worthy of Inspector Clouseau. In these 11 stories, Dover commonly arrives at crime scenes just in time to quit for lunch, then naps while his assistants fret about such mundane matters as clues, motives and witnesses. In ``Dover Tangles with High Finance,'' the inspector offends a gaggle of corporate directors whose chairman was poisoned. In the humbler precincts of ``Dover Pulls a Rabbit,'' the porcine policeman must literally squeeze himself into a tiny cottage where a woman has been beaten to death-after which his unpleasant behavior actually leads to the culprit. Porter (1924-1990) makes her bumptious lout incredibly engaging. The solutions generally ring true, for Porter plants clues in the best British whodunit tradition, simultaneously honoring the genre's conventions even as she sends it up.
