The Middle Temple Murder

An elderly, unidentified man is found dead in the small hours in Middle Temple Lane, at the heart of legal London, and a young newspaper sub-editor named Frank Spargo attaches himself to the case out of professional curiosity that soon becomes obsession. The only clue is a scrap of paper bearing a name, and the trail Spargo follows runs back decades into a story of fraud, a stolen identity, and a reputation built on someone else’s ruin. J. S. Fletcher tells it with the clipped energy of a newsroom, and the book’s American success, helped by President Woodrow Wilson’s public praise, made him a household name. First published in 1919, it is his best-known novel. Read it here as a free PDF and EPUB edition.