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Inspector French #24
The Affair at Little Wokeham
Published in America as 'Double Tragedy'.
312 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1943
5 people are currently reading
81 people want to read
About the author
Freeman Wills Crofts
137 books89 followersBorn in Dublin of English stock, Freeman Wills Crofts was educated at Methodist and Campbell Colleges in Belfast and at age 17 he became a civil engineering pupil, apprenticed to his uncle, Berkeley D Wise who was the chief engineer of the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway (BNCR).
In 1899 he became a fully fledged railway engineer before becoming a district engineer and then chief assistant engineer for the BNCR.
He married in 1912, Mary Bellas Canning, a bank manager's daughter. His writing career began when he was recovering from a serious illness and his efforts were rewarded when his first novel 'The Cask' was accepted for publication by a London publishing house. Within two decades the book had sold 100,000 copies. Thereafter he continued to write in his spare time and produced a book a year through to 1929 when he was obliged to stop working through poor health.
When he and his wife moved to Guildford, England, he took up writing full time and not surprisingly many of his plots revolved around travel and transport, particularly transport timetables and many of them had a Guildford setting.
In retirement from engineering, as well as writing, he also pursued his other interests, music, in which he was an organist and conductor, gardening, carpentry and travel.
He wrote a mystery novel almost every year until his death and in addition he produced about 50 short stories, 30 radio plays for the BBC, a number of true crime works, a play, 'Sudden Death', a juvenile mystery, 'Young Robin Brand, Detective', and a religious work, 'The Four Gospels in One Story'.
His best known character is Inspector Joseph French, who featured in 30 detective novels between 1924 and 1957. And Raymond Chandler praised his plots, calling him "the soundest builder of them all".
Gerry Wolstenholme
May 2010
In 1899 he became a fully fledged railway engineer before becoming a district engineer and then chief assistant engineer for the BNCR.
He married in 1912, Mary Bellas Canning, a bank manager's daughter. His writing career began when he was recovering from a serious illness and his efforts were rewarded when his first novel 'The Cask' was accepted for publication by a London publishing house. Within two decades the book had sold 100,000 copies. Thereafter he continued to write in his spare time and produced a book a year through to 1929 when he was obliged to stop working through poor health.
When he and his wife moved to Guildford, England, he took up writing full time and not surprisingly many of his plots revolved around travel and transport, particularly transport timetables and many of them had a Guildford setting.
In retirement from engineering, as well as writing, he also pursued his other interests, music, in which he was an organist and conductor, gardening, carpentry and travel.
He wrote a mystery novel almost every year until his death and in addition he produced about 50 short stories, 30 radio plays for the BBC, a number of true crime works, a play, 'Sudden Death', a juvenile mystery, 'Young Robin Brand, Detective', and a religious work, 'The Four Gospels in One Story'.
His best known character is Inspector Joseph French, who featured in 30 detective novels between 1924 and 1957. And Raymond Chandler praised his plots, calling him "the soundest builder of them all".
Gerry Wolstenholme
May 2010
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 28, 2023
First published in 1943 (US title "Double Tragedy"), this was one of five inverted novels in the Inspector French series, and I consider it the best I have read.
Although it features the comprehensive theorising and alibi- busting, interviewing and re-interviewing, timetabling and ticket-checking which one expects, it also uses changes of point-of-view in a most interesting way. This means the reader is not as intensely focussed on the criminal as is often the case with inverted tales, nor is there quite as much internal agonising. The criminal here is every bit as ingenious as French and a meticulous and elaborate scheme of murder and deception is the result.
The structure also lends itself to more detailed depiction of the characters than is often the case with Crofts, and again, a rather touching romance is twined in.
This is one of the best in the series, with a solid plot, good characterisation, flowing style and efficient policework. My only reservation concerns the ending, which while quite nicely-written, is a somewhat contrived cliche.
Recommend.
4.25 stars.
Although it features the comprehensive theorising and alibi- busting, interviewing and re-interviewing, timetabling and ticket-checking which one expects, it also uses changes of point-of-view in a most interesting way. This means the reader is not as intensely focussed on the criminal as is often the case with inverted tales, nor is there quite as much internal agonising. The criminal here is every bit as ingenious as French and a meticulous and elaborate scheme of murder and deception is the result.
The structure also lends itself to more detailed depiction of the characters than is often the case with Crofts, and again, a rather touching romance is twined in.
This is one of the best in the series, with a solid plot, good characterisation, flowing style and efficient policework. My only reservation concerns the ending, which while quite nicely-written, is a somewhat contrived cliche.
Recommend.
4.25 stars.
September 26, 2023
Clever inverted plot
May 12, 2015
Clarence Winnington is a wealthy (and not very pleasant) retired Colonial Governor living in his country pile at Little Wokeham. Having no offspring of his own, his nephew and two nieces stand to inherit his estate and he uses their expectations to make them dance to his tune. He then gets himself murdered to speed up the inheritance process.
As this is an inverted mystery, we know who did it from the off. Crofts uses all his skill and imagination in this complex plot with supposedly a foolproof alibi. We are privy to every thought of Chief Inspector Joseph French as he painstakingly unravels the case. Unusually, various chapters also relate the story from the point of view of all the other protagonists involved including the murderer.
If you like police procedurals, like I do, then you will enjoy this one. Probably four and a half stars would have been fairer.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommend.
As this is an inverted mystery, we know who did it from the off. Crofts uses all his skill and imagination in this complex plot with supposedly a foolproof alibi. We are privy to every thought of Chief Inspector Joseph French as he painstakingly unravels the case. Unusually, various chapters also relate the story from the point of view of all the other protagonists involved including the murderer.
If you like police procedurals, like I do, then you will enjoy this one. Probably four and a half stars would have been fairer.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommend.
December 21, 2023
This was a great book for many reasons. 1. It does not rely on farfetched assumptions by the detective to get the story to progress (in fact, it's quite the opposite) 2. It actually shows all the flaws in the detective's thinking which cause him to be moving in the wrong direction for some time. A thoroughly entertaining mystery
August 30, 2023
This "inverted Mystery" was very entertaining all the way through. Inspector French faces an extra challenge he doesn't even perceive - both time of death and a piece of physical evidence have been mucked around with, all because someone is trying to shield someone they suspect of being the killer, so that a third someone's life won't be ruined by scandal spillover. This was indeed a great choice of plot for an inverted Murder Mystery - where we know who the killer is from early on - because watching what several well-meaning twits are doing in tandem with what the murderer is up to, as the after-effects of bloody mayhem shift and swirl around them due to all the tampering and lying, is great fun.
Inspector French seemed particularly good at forming credible theories from tiny pieces of evidence, or little ticks in human behaviour, in this entry - to an almost Sherlockian degree. The murderer's scheme seems so iron-clad and clever - and then we have the further sabotage of evidence - that I wondered how French could see clues through the murk. I especially loved what he got from some shoe-prints with only a brief examination, and that ended up being less impressive than all the lemonade he squeezes out of the tiny, scattered, tainted remains of lemons he tweezers out of all the trickery around him.
Chapters move from psyche to psyche, including of course that of a murderer who will stop at nothing to conceal a crime that starts to feel its way out into the public domain, and this also works well and improves the book immensely. Since everyone seems so all-fire determined to make solving this thing harder, it's intriguing to follow their thought processes, especially when the already unwieldy "it must have been a burglar who broke in" theory takes its worst punch in the gut thanks to shocking follow-up mayhem.
A treat among Crime novels where we don't get to work a puzzle.
Inspector French seemed particularly good at forming credible theories from tiny pieces of evidence, or little ticks in human behaviour, in this entry - to an almost Sherlockian degree. The murderer's scheme seems so iron-clad and clever - and then we have the further sabotage of evidence - that I wondered how French could see clues through the murk. I especially loved what he got from some shoe-prints with only a brief examination, and that ended up being less impressive than all the lemonade he squeezes out of the tiny, scattered, tainted remains of lemons he tweezers out of all the trickery around him.
Chapters move from psyche to psyche, including of course that of a murderer who will stop at nothing to conceal a crime that starts to feel its way out into the public domain, and this also works well and improves the book immensely. Since everyone seems so all-fire determined to make solving this thing harder, it's intriguing to follow their thought processes, especially when the already unwieldy "it must have been a burglar who broke in" theory takes its worst punch in the gut thanks to shocking follow-up mayhem.
A treat among Crime novels where we don't get to work a puzzle.
May 13, 2025
This is one of FWC’s books where you know who the killer is and the suspense is when and how they’ll do it and whether and how French will catch them. It’s fun to watch the killer (who is actually ingenious) plan out their perfect crime while we imagine how later French will tramp in their footsteps, find the tiniest stray thread, and unravel the whole sweater. This one had some good characters and a lot of very suspenseful scenes.
April 25, 2023
Great story
I like this very much it kept you turning the to see whether the criminal or French would win one of his best
I think if you read croft book this should be one of the first I highly recommend it
I like this very much it kept you turning the to see whether the criminal or French would win one of his best
I think if you read croft book this should be one of the first I highly recommend it
January 21, 2026
For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.com/2025/...
https://crossexaminingcrime.com/2025/...
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews