A powerful and ruthless American capitalist is found dead in the garden of his English country house. But why is he not wearing his false teeth? Why is his young widow so relieved at his death? The artist and amateur detective Philip Trent arrives to find there is some more to the case than the solving of a puzzle: he must accept his own fallibility, in detection and romance.
This was published in 1913 and "written in reaction against the solemnity of the Sherlock Holmes stories".
I looked for this for ages finally found it, read it and was really,really disappointed. Its all a bit silly. Bentley does the "Holmes" deduction thing with humour but plot wise its a dud and Raymond Chandler who knew a bit about writing, was right to ridicule the story.
Agatha Christie did a bit of thievery from this tale and made much better use of the device.
This is a book that needed to be ticked off as I'm a fan of the genre but wouldn't recommend it for any other reason.
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