The Roger Scarlett Mysteries, Vol. 3: In the First Degree

Is trouble brewing at Boston's historic Loring house, a rare survival of Federal period architecture on Cambridge Street in Bowdoin Square? On leave while recovering from a nasty bout of influenza, Inspector Norton Kane of the Boston police is importuned by a most agitated caller, John Faraday, to look into something sinister that he suspects is afoot within the hallowed walls of the Loring mansion: a plot to murder owner Aaron Loring himself! Lacking any real evidence that would justify an official police investigation yet nevertheless intrigued as ever by the bright lure of murder, Inspector Norton in the guise of a lodger inveigles himself into the company of the Lorings to perform a spot of freelance detection. Most provokingly, however, foul murder is committed at the mansion, despite the inspector's presence. Can the keen-minded Inspector Kane bring this baffling crime home to its clever perpetrator?

With this last brainteasing detective novel Roger Scarlett departed from the mystery stage in a blaze of glory, Isaac Anderson in New York Times Book Review avowing: "[T]here is a surprise in store for the reader who thinks it is easy. . . . [T]he plot is as ingenious as it is unusual."

All three volumes of The Roger Scarlett Mysteries include Curt Evans' bibliographic introduction to the women who wrote behind the pseudonym, Roger Scarlett, along with other fascinating details about these often-overlooked books. For more classic mystery reprints, visit CoachwhipBooks.com.