Motive for a Kill

Jonathan Blake

by John Newton Chance

Jonathan Blake returned to an old house and an old love-as he thought. He came back to the house of smugglers and wreckers who had plundered the Cornish coast for centuries and wrecked fine ships on the rocks below the cliffs. This time, when he got there, he found a yacht wrecked-but on top of the spiked gates leading from the road. How it got there, why it got there, proved a twisted tale until the ship revealed itself as the most unlikely cause of all-a motive to kill.

169 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

John Newton Chance was born in London in 1911 and educated at a private school there. He went to a Technical College with the intention of becoming a Civil Engineer, but left that to become a Quantity Surveyor. While surveying, he began to write for the BBC, and on his twenty-first birthday gave up all honest work to become a writer. The first novel was published in 1935, was hailed as a masterpiece and, like so many such, grossed more glory than gain. But it established the writer's career, which he has followed ever since with the exception of the four war years. When his war ended, he and his wife came to live in Hampshire where their first son was horn. Seventeen books later a second son arrived, and six books further on, the third came along. Among the books of the time there were a number for children, and the adult stories were published here, in America and on the Continent; some were filmed and a number broadcast.

source: his autobiography Yellow Belly

He would eventually write over 160 books under several names. Pseudonyms used by Chance throughout his career included:
John Lymington, David C. Newton, and Jonathan Chance.

He was also one of the many writers responsible for the 'Sexton Blake' series that spanned decades. Those were written by slates of authors using the same personas to include Desmond Reid and John Drummond among others.