The Viaduct Murder

When a body is discovered on the golf links near a country dormy-house, four middle-aged clubmen decide to try their hand at detection, and Knox turns their eager amateur theorizing into a sly comedy of errors. Mordaunt Reeves and his companions reconstruct the crime, quarrel over rival solutions, and repeatedly mistake their own cleverness for proof. First published in 1925, this was Knox’s debut in the genre he loved and gently mocked, written while he was also codifying the rules of fair-play detective fiction. The result reads as both a genuine puzzle and a knowing send-up of the armchair sleuth. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.