Seven Dead
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder
"Originally published in 1939, this reissue in the British Library Crime Classics series from Farjeon (1883-1955) is a standout, with a particularly horrifying opening." —Publishers Weekly STARRED review
Ted Lyte, amateur thief, has chosen an isolated house by the coast for his first robbery. But Haven House is no ordinary country home. While hunting for silverware to steal, Ted stumbles upon a locked room containing seven dead bodies.
Detective Inspector Kendall takes on the case with the help of passing yachtsman Thomas Hazeldean. The search for the house's absent owners brings Hazeldean across the Channel to Boulogne, where he finds more than one motive to stay and investigate.
Seven Dead is an atmospheric crime novel first published in 1939.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Originally published in 1939, this reissue in the British Library Crime Classics series from Farjeon (1883 1955) is a standout, with a particularly horrifying opening. Ted Lyte, a small-time thief who usually contents himself with picking pockets, enters an apparently unoccupied house near the British coast only to encounter a grotesque tableau behind a locked door. The room he enters, whose shutters are not only bolted but nailed shut, contains seven emaciated corpses, six of them male; a mantelpiece is adorned by a silver vase supporting an old cricket ball. Lyte flees the scene in terror, only to run into the police. When Inspector Kendall arrives, along with freelance reporter Thomas Hazeldean, who saw Lyte run from the house, Kendall discovers further unsettling oddities, including a crumpled note under one of the dead men bearing the message: "with apologies from the suicide club." Kendall and Hazeldean complement each other nicely as they work toward a satisfyingly logical solution to this ingenious locked-room mystery.
