Tragedy on the Line is a 1931 detective novel by John Rhode, the pen name of the British writer Cecil Street.[1] It is the tenth in his long-running series of novels featuring Lancelot Priestley, a Golden Age armchair detective who works alongside the less sharp-witted Superintendent Hanslet of Scotland Yard. It was published in the United States the same year by Dodd Mead.[2]

Tragedy on the Line
First Edition (UK)
AuthorJohn Rhode
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
SeriesLancelot Priestley
GenreDetective
PublisherCollins Crime Club (UK)
Dodd Mead (US)
Publication date
1931
Media typePrint
Preceded byPinehurst 
Followed byThe Hanging Woman 

Synopsis edit

The wealthy Gervase Wickenden is found dead on the railway line near Upton Bishop's station. Decapitated it is at first assumed he was killed by a train, until a bullet is discovered in a nearby tree. Added to this was the suspicious fact that he had changed his will only two days before, and both the old and the new version are now missing.

References edit

  1. ^ Evans p.134
  2. ^ Reilly p.1257

Bibliography edit

  • Evans, Curtis. Masters of the "Humdrum" Mystery: Cecil John Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, Alfred Walter Stewart and the British Detective Novel, 1920-1961. McFarland, 2014.
  • Herbert, Rosemary. Whodunit?: A Who's Who in Crime & Mystery Writing. Oxford University Press, 2003.
  • Reilly, John M. Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers. Springer, 2015.