Thirteen Guests

Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder

"There's murder, mutilation, and mayhem aplenty until the redoubtable Detective Inspector Kendall reveals his clever conclusions with a timetable of mischief." --Publishers Weekly

'No observer, ignorant of the situation, would have guessed that death lurked nearby, and that only a little distance from the glitter of silver and glass and the hum of voices, two victims lay silent on a studio floor.'

On a fine autumn weekend Lord Aveling hosts a hunting party at his country house, Bragley Court. Among the guests are an actress, a journalist, an artist, and a mystery novelist. The unlucky thirteenth is John Foss, injured at the local train station and brought to the house to recuperate--but John is nursing a secret of his own.

Soon events take a sinister turn when a painting is mutilated, a dog stabbed, and a man strangled. Death strikes more than one of the house guests, and the police are called. Detective Inspector Kendall's skills are tested to the utmost as he tries to uncover the hidden past of everyone at Bragley Court.

This country-house mystery is a forgotten classic of 1930s crime fiction by one of the most undeservedly neglected of golden age detective novelists.

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 09/01/2015
Pages: 294
Weight: 0.7lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.30w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781464204890


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 07/27/2015

About the Author

J. JEFFERSON FARJEON (1883-1955) was the author of more than sixty crime and thriller novels that were highly acclaimed in his lifetime. Farjeon is the author of Number Seventeen, a play that was adapted for the big screen by Alfred Hitchcock. His Christmas crime novel, Mystery in White, was republished as a British Library Crime Classic and became a bestseller.