The Charing Cross Mystery

Riding home on a late-night Underground train, a young barrister watches an elderly stranger collapse and die, apparently of a heart attack. Another passenger who had been talking with the dead man slips away before the carriage reaches the platform. When a post-mortem reveals a rare poison, the barrister understands he has witnessed a murder and pushes into an investigation that runs from London courtrooms to old secrets and a fortune worth killing for. J. S. Fletcher paces the chase briskly, favoring puzzle and pursuit over gore, in the mode that made his detective novels bestsellers in the 1920s. First published in 1923, it remains one of his most readable thrillers. Read it here as a free PDF and EPUB edition.