The Best Martin Hewitt Detective Stories

During the 1890s, the heyday of Sherlock Holmes, Martin Hewitt ranked among England's most popular fictional detectives. A favorite of readers of The Strand and other magazines, Hewitt returns in this collection of nine of his best cases. Hewitt enters the scene in &quote;The Lenton Croft Robberies,&quote; in which he is called upon to solve three successive jewel robberies whose only clues are three half-burnt wooden matches. In &quote;The Case of the Dixon Torpedo,&quote; he must figure out how mechanical drawings for a new weapon could have vanished from an office that no one entered or left. In other cases, Hewitt examines the theft of a valuable cameo from a locked desk in a guarded house, the plunder of gold bullion from the hold of a sinking ship, and the disappearance of a will right from under the noses of the dying man's family. The final four stories concern a suicide that may be a murder, a marital case that isn't as simple as it seems, a clue to a treasure in a piece of music, and the robbery of a sacred relic. Novel and imaginative in subject matter, meticulously plotted, and smoothly written, these stories will captivate mystery lovers.