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Sholto Lestrade Mystery #7
Lestrade and the Deadly Game
The papers call it suicide. The deceased's father doesn't think so. Would England's best athlete really kill himself on the eve of the 1908 Olympic Games?
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1990
About the author
M.J. Trow
175 books122 followersMeirion James Trow is a full-time teacher of history who has been doubling as a crime writer for seventeen years. Originally from Ferndale, Rhondda in South Wales he now lives on the Isle of Wight. His interests include collecting militaria, film, the supernatural and true crime.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 18, 2025
If you liked the others then you won't want to miss this one about the 1908 London Olympic Games.
These are books on two levels. On the obvious level they are Sherlock Holmes type of stories , usually with several bodies. set in the London of early 1900s. As with the originals , they aren't so much of a who-done -it as there is very little for the armchair detective to work with and with some late disclosure that provides the vital link. You read both types because of the antics of the main character. Sherlock has his deductive brain; Sholto Lestrade has almost a Clouseau type of approach to policework.
The second level to the story is the subtle humour that the author brings . Sometimes ,I found myself rereading passages because I was sure I was missing something clever, not that I needed to reread the passage about the dead woman in the boat with the onions !
Other authors and detectives are mentioned briefly in the narrative . I spotted a Gilbert Chesterton.and also a Mr Lewis and even a Hilaire and Baring Gould, (although the reference to Greeks with the latter escaped me).
Sholto still appears somewhat under the sword of Mrs Malaprop not least when he renames the Duchess of Westminsters yacht after a skin disease . He also manages to give Kenneth Graham an idea for Mr Toad.
I know that I can count on these books to make me smile which this one did, repeatedly.
17th December 2025
These are books on two levels. On the obvious level they are Sherlock Holmes type of stories , usually with several bodies. set in the London of early 1900s. As with the originals , they aren't so much of a who-done -it as there is very little for the armchair detective to work with and with some late disclosure that provides the vital link. You read both types because of the antics of the main character. Sherlock has his deductive brain; Sholto Lestrade has almost a Clouseau type of approach to policework.
The second level to the story is the subtle humour that the author brings . Sometimes ,I found myself rereading passages because I was sure I was missing something clever, not that I needed to reread the passage about the dead woman in the boat with the onions !
Other authors and detectives are mentioned briefly in the narrative . I spotted a Gilbert Chesterton.and also a Mr Lewis and even a Hilaire and Baring Gould, (although the reference to Greeks with the latter escaped me).
Sholto still appears somewhat under the sword of Mrs Malaprop not least when he renames the Duchess of Westminsters yacht after a skin disease . He also manages to give Kenneth Graham an idea for Mr Toad.
I know that I can count on these books to make me smile which this one did, repeatedly.
17th December 2025
February 13, 2021
This entry in the Sholto Lestrade series is set during the London Olympics of 1908 where a series of murders of competing athletes perplexes the Yard. There are a few genuine laughs and some mis-fired attempts, while the appearance of the later famous becomes a bit wearing, although Baden-Powell fits appropriately. Compared to some of the other Lestrade novels, this time the mystery of who is doing the killing and why, is quite intriguing. Lestrade and his offsiders plus an international cast travel around London and the south to find an unexpected perpetrator
April 27, 2022
Lestrade, the bumbling inspector in the Sherlock Holmes stories, comes to life in this very witty and punny mystery set in the 1908 London Olympic Games.
March 22, 2011
After recently devouring a steampunk adventure set in an alternate history of the same epoch (Victorian to post-Victorian/Edwardian), I have to say that Truow has a marvelous capacity for dropping historical color into the book without looking like he’s used so much color that the canvas has turned to black. He introduces fascinating characters from the era without being obtrusive. In the past, we’ve seen Sir Rudyard Kipling, Gilbert & Sullivan, William Booth (of Salvation Army fame) and Alfred Lord Tennyson while this story brings us into contact with cross-dressing General Baden-Powell (which might explain certain inefficiencies in Britain’s WWI leadership and may or may not have as much veracity as the U.S.’s legendary FBI director, Mrs. ….er…Mr. J. Edgar Hoover) and economist John Maynard Keynes. As with all of the books in this series, one finds it interesting to observe which historical characters serve as mere cameos and which are used for more telling purposes.
I suppose another guilty pleasure behind this series is the use of word-play and deliberate misunderstandings. Our author deliberately makes light of Lestrade’s lack of education and regularly has the detective stumble over the most elementary (pardon the pun in the light of the protagonist’s literary origin) terms and phrases. It often illuminates the detective’s lack of sophistication, particularly in the light of the aristocracy with which he must interact. The gap in social strata is handled more whimsically in the Lestrade series than in Anne Perry’s more serious cycles of mysteries set in the same general era.
The set-up in this particular mystery almost put me off the entire book. I am enjoying reading this book series in “chronological” order but didn’t like the idea of having the Olympic games in London with athletes (and others) being killed off in a pattern suggestive of a serial killer. Yet, I was glad that I read the story, anyway. The motive for the killings proved considerably more interesting than the set-up—even though the link between the murderer and the motive was more deftly disguised than in some Agatha Christie mysteries. There was even an extra “red herring” toward the end that made me doubt my initial analysis of the murderer’s identity, but if you’re a regular reader of the series, it won’t be as much of a surprise as it might have been in an earlier episode.
At first, I thought the Lestrade series was going to “jump the shark.” It appeared that Truow was just going to use the Olympics to pile corpses on corpses via a series of odd murders. He does that in a way, but the resulting chaos and political machinations are fascinating. Although this book didn’t seem as strong as some of the earlier novels in the series, that may well be because I didn’t really care for the set-up.
I suppose another guilty pleasure behind this series is the use of word-play and deliberate misunderstandings. Our author deliberately makes light of Lestrade’s lack of education and regularly has the detective stumble over the most elementary (pardon the pun in the light of the protagonist’s literary origin) terms and phrases. It often illuminates the detective’s lack of sophistication, particularly in the light of the aristocracy with which he must interact. The gap in social strata is handled more whimsically in the Lestrade series than in Anne Perry’s more serious cycles of mysteries set in the same general era.
The set-up in this particular mystery almost put me off the entire book. I am enjoying reading this book series in “chronological” order but didn’t like the idea of having the Olympic games in London with athletes (and others) being killed off in a pattern suggestive of a serial killer. Yet, I was glad that I read the story, anyway. The motive for the killings proved considerably more interesting than the set-up—even though the link between the murderer and the motive was more deftly disguised than in some Agatha Christie mysteries. There was even an extra “red herring” toward the end that made me doubt my initial analysis of the murderer’s identity, but if you’re a regular reader of the series, it won’t be as much of a surprise as it might have been in an earlier episode.
At first, I thought the Lestrade series was going to “jump the shark.” It appeared that Truow was just going to use the Olympics to pile corpses on corpses via a series of odd murders. He does that in a way, but the resulting chaos and political machinations are fascinating. Although this book didn’t seem as strong as some of the earlier novels in the series, that may well be because I didn’t really care for the set-up.
December 22, 2015
There is one word to describe this detective story: Britishness. If you totally hate everything British, this is definitely not the book for you. I experienced it as an audio book read by the author, so I got a double treat, as Mr.Trow is an accomplished impersonator. I loved his rendering immensely and I strongly recommend it! Way to go, looking forward to the next audio book!
November 26, 2008
A new series for me. This book was funny and kept me reading. I had other thoughts about it but I forget what they were. Maybe it's that a ridiculous amount of people got killed. (But, it was funny! Really!)
August 11, 2019
Library find.
Intriguing fast paced book!
Intriguing fast paced book!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews