The Sea Mystery
In this 1928 Inspector French case, a fishing trip off the Welsh coast turns grim when two men haul up a wooden crate and find a battered body sealed inside. With the victim disfigured beyond easy recognition, French faces the hardest part first: giving the dead man a name. From that single crate he works outward, tracing timber, shipping, and the small commercial details most people never notice, until the chain leads back to a coldly planned crime. It is Crofts at his most characteristic, a patient reconstruction that turns dull-sounding evidence into a tightening net. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available here.
About the Author
Freeman Wills Crofts (1879-1957) was an Irish-born railway engineer who began writing detective fiction while recovering from a long illness. A founding member of the Detection Club, he became a mainstay of the Golden Age and is best remembered for the methodical Inspector French.
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Listen to The Sea Mystery Audiobook Free
Listen to The Sea Mystery by Freeman Wills Crofts free online. The full audiobook (8 hr 37 min, 20 chapters, read by Steven Warner) streams free on this page.
The Sea Mystery (1928) is a public domain work.
| # | Chapter | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mr. Morgan Meets Tragedy | 25:56 | |
| 2 | Inspector French Gets Busy | 28:06 | |
| 3 | Experimental Detection | 27:27 | |
| 4 | A Change of Venue | 25:47 | |
| 5 | Messrs, Berlyn and Pyke | 18:44 | |
| 6 | The Despatch Of The Crate | 17:17 | |
| 7 | Dartmoor | 30:52 | |
| 8 | A Fresh Start | 25:26 | |
| 9 | A Step Forward | 24:50 | |
| 10 | London's Further Contribution | 24:55 | |
| 11 | John Gurney, Night Watchman | 18:22 | |
| 12 | The Duplicator | 30:24 | |
| 13 | The Accomplice? | 30:24 | |
| 14 | French Turns Fisherman | 24:31 | |
| 15 | Blackmail | 25:20 | |
| 16 | Certainty At Last | 20:17 | |
| 17 | "Danger!" | 29:01 | |
| 18 | On Hampstead Heath | 24:46 | |
| 19 | The Bitterness of Death | 41:18 | |
| 20 | Conclusion | 23:28 |
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