There Was a Crooked Man

By: Witting, Clifford

A crooked old bridge, a dead man in a shanty, and more secrets than the Magpie and Stump's back room--welcome to Frenstead, where nothing is as quiet as it seems.

Beneath the pine woods of Downshire, city sophisticates and village gossips are about to collide. When Charles "Crooked Charley" Keldrick is found strangled in his expertly decorated shack on Painswick Hill, a tangle of eccentric villagers, slick outsiders, and secrets as old as the bracken start to surface. The local pub rings with shifting stories--a tongue-tied builder's labourer, a journalist far too charming for comfort, and aristocrats guarding their legacy tooth and nail.

Detective-Inspector Bradfield treads between cracked signposts and even more fragile alibis, shadowed by rumours, bad blood, and a scarf gone missing. Frenstead's choir of suspects includes brawlers, blackmailers, and those too clever by half--each one with something to hide and plenty to say.

With atmosphere thick enough to cut and characters as sly as anything from a Colin Dexter mystery, the puzzle weaves through shadowed woods, village darts nights, and the English countryside's sharpest tongues. Here, murder is personal and loyalty is subject to the next round at the Magpie and Stump. Readers who relish the sly wit and twisting turns of Golden Age whodunnits won't want to miss this classic village mystery with a distinctly British heart.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1917543417
• ISBN13: 9781917543415
• Release Date: February 2027
• Publisher: Galileo Publishers
• Length: 226 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.0" x 5.0" x 8.0"