Murder Gone Mad

The first Golden Age detective novel to feature a serial killer with no rational motive – and surely impossible for Scotland Yard to solve?

A long knife with a brilliant but perverted brain directing it is terrorising Holmdale – innocent people are being done to death under the very eyes of the law. After every murder a business-like letter arrives announcing that another ‘removal has been carried out’, and Inspector Pyke of Scotland Yard has nothing to go on but the evidence of the bodies themselves and the butcher’s own bravado. With clear thinking impossible in the face of such a breathless killing spree, the police make painfully slow progress: but how do you find a maniac who has no rational motive?

Philip MacDonald had shown himself in The Noose and The Rasp to be a master of the detective novel. In Murder Gone Mad he raised the stakes with the first Golden Age crime novel to feature a motiveless serial killer prompted only by blood lust – inspired by the real-life case in 1929 of the Düsseldorf Monster – and this time without the familiar Anthony Gethryn on hand to reassure the reader.

This Detective Story Club classic is introduced by L. C. Tyler, Chair of the Crime Writers Association and author of the award-winning ‘Elsie and Ethelred’ crime novels and the John Grey historical mysteries.

Reviews

‘The more I read his work, the better I like it.’ Sunday Times

‘This author shares with A.E.W. Mason a quality which few detective story-writers possess, the ability to construct situations of almost unbearable suspense. Common sense may tell us that right must triumph, but until we reach the last page our harrowed sensibilities will not allow us to lay aside the book.’ The Times

‘However tastes may differ, most people would admit that Philip MacDonald is one of the half-dozen best writers of detective fiction.’ Glasgow Herald

‘Mr MacDonald, almost alone among detective story-writers, mixes literature with murder.’ Time and Tide

About the author

British author Philip MacDonald wrote more than 30 accomplished crime novels, many of them after moving to Hollywood in 1931, where he also wrote and produced more than 100 scripts for the silver screen. His first solo novel, The Rasp (1924) introduced Colonel Anthony Gethryn, a gentleman detective who went on to appear in a dozen novels, including The Noose, The Maze and finally The List of Adrian Messenger in 1959.