The Cask

Written by Freeman Wills Crofts

Narrated by Gordon Griffin

From the Collins Crime Club archive, the seminal first novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed ‘The King of Detective Story Writers’ and recognised as one of the ‘big four’ Golden Age crime authors.

The unloading of a consignment of French wine from the steamship Bullfinch is interrupted by a gruesome discovery in a broken cask leaking sawdust and gold sovereigns. But when the shipping clerk returns with the police, the cask and its macabre contents have gone. Following the clues to Paris, Inspector Burnley of Scotland Yard enlists the help of the genial French detective M. Lefarge to check motives and alibis in their hunt for evidence of a particularly fiendish murder.

This Detective Story Club classic is introduced by Freeman Wills Crofts himself in a unique preface from 1946 about The Cask’s origins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Release date: May 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9780008342449

Freeman Wills Crofts

Freeman Wills Crofts (1879–1957) was an Irish author of detective fiction. Born in Dublin, he spent decades as a railroad engineer in Northern Ireland. When a long illness kept him away from work, he wrote The Cask (1920), a mystery novel that launched him to immediate popularity. He continued writing after he returned to work, finally leaving the railroad in 1929 to write full time. His best-known novels include The Starvel Hollow Tragedy (1927) and The 12:30 from Croydon (1934).

Reviews for The Cask

[ygifford-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

First published in 1920 a golden age mystery book, The events take place in 1912 in both England and France. This is the first book for Freeman Wills Crofts, Interesting read with lost of turn, threads and complex plot. Good book overall with a solid. 3 stars rating. Keep in mind the age of the book while reading.

[jetangen4571 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

law-enforcement, procedural, Paris, London, murder-investigation *****A classic work combining the Surete and Scotland Yard meticulously digging about in order to get the right murderer enclosed in an airtight legal case in 1912. The plot crisscrosses the channel and has more twists and red herrings than the reader can deal with except to simply read and enjoy!I requested and received a free ebook copy from Dover Publications via NetGalley. Thank you!

[antiquary_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Freeman Wills Crofts' first mystery, about a wine cask unloaded from a ship from France found to contain gold sovereigns, sawdust, and a woman's body --a cask which vanishes soon after it is discovered. Like several of Crofts' other stories it makes use of his personal professional expertise as engineer for a shipping company, and it was in fact written during an illness while he was still serving as such an engineer. The one major difference from most of his other stories is that it does not involve his series detective Inspector French; the Scotland Yard man who is called in is Inspector Burnley, and the mystery is actually solved by Georges La Touche from France. Considered a classic mystery.