Mystery and Crime Froest, Frank: The Grell Mystery, v1, 11 December 2009.

[Patricia]

Frank Froest (1858–1930)
The Grell Mystery (1913)

Mr Robert Grell is apparently found murdered in his study. After a little time, the police realise that the corpse is not that of Robert Grell, but someone who looked a lot like him. Where has Grell gone? And who is the corpse? Scotland Yard investigates…

About the author:
After a successful career as a Metropolitan police officer in London (he was the man who though of using wireless to achieve Dr Crippen’s arrest) Frank Froest wrote detective stories in his retirement in Weston-super-Mare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Froest

The source was PG.
HarryT did an LRF version in 2007. Mine differs from his in having a cover (the original cover image), emdashes and curly quotes. Also it’s now available in more formats.

This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws. If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.

To report a copyright violation you can contact us here.

[SensualPoet]

Thanks for this!

Frank Froest's pre-WWI police detective tale, The Grell Mystery, is an unexpectedly delightful read. The author, a retired Scotland Yarder himself, in the guise of New Scotland Yard's Criminal Investigation Department's (CID) Executive Chief Heldon Foyle, sets out to solve the murder of Robert Grell, American explorer, at the dead man's house at Grosvenor Gardens, London ... the butler found him. There are dozens of twists and turns, starting with the revelation almost at the outset that it's not Grell who was murdered at all though the body was found in Grell's study, wearing his clothes, and carrying his identification.

Occasionally one glimpses Froest's own agenda peeking out from behind the curtains. This was the age of Sherlock Holmes, who was still hugely popular and solving new cases in The Strand Weekly. Froest admonishes us that his detective "rarely wore a dressing-gown and never played the violin". Froest attempts to remove the glamour from detective work and, thankfully, fails: his hero, Heldon Foyle, is constantly front-and-centre, solving riddles, taking death-defying chances in opium and gambling dens, and, since his Watson is an entire field force of detectives, giving orders to his agents across London and the countryside, he has lots to do!

There is one breathtaking aspect, quite apart from the sheer fun of the plotting, and that is the ripe anti-Semitism which rears its head briefly among the thieves den of the Whitechapel ghetto Foyle enters singe-handedly. Yet that was a reflection of the world in 1913, and of British culture. Nonetheless, the views are so matter-of-factly stated, to modern ears and eyes it is a bucket of cold water. It is, however, quite incidental to the main story and should not deter anyone from investigating an unjustly forgotten detective writer's oeuvre.

[Patricia]

I'm glad that you liked it, SensualPoet. I've also converted a sequel by the same author.