Antidote to Venom

By Freeman Wills Crofts and Martin Edwards

George Surridge, director of the Birmington Zoo, is a man with many worries: his marriage is collapsing; his finances are insecure; and an outbreak of disease threatens the animals in his care.

As Surridge's debts mount and the pressure on him increases, he begins to dream of miracle solutions. But is he cunning enough to turn his dreams into reality - and could he commit the most devious murder in pursuit of his goals?

This ingenious crime novel, with its unusual 'inverted' structure and sympathetic portrait of a man on the edge, is one of the greatest works by this highly respected author. The elaborate means of murder devised by Crofts's characters is perhaps unsurpassed in English crime fiction for its ostentatious intricacy.

This new edition is the first in several decades and includes an introduction by the award-winning novelist and crime fiction expert Martin Edwards.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Release date: Jul 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781464203800

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).