The Cask

Crofts' first novel--a famous work, and a landmark in the genre. It's old-fashioned, and closer in spirit and approach to Gaboriau than to Doyle or Freeman, let alone Christie or Chesterton or Bentley--and yet it would set the tone for much of the 1920s and 1930s. It's an enormous work (400 pages), but never boring--I was reminded of Heine's famous comparison of Meyerbeer's Huguenots to a Gothic cathedral, built by 'a giant in the conception and design of the whole, a...
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Crofts' first novel--a famous work, and a landmark in the genre. It's old-fashioned, and closer in spirit and approach to Gaboriau than to Doyle or Freeman, let alone Christie or Chesterton or Bentley--and yet it would set the tone for much of the 1920s and 1930s. It's an enormous work (400 pages), but never boring--I was reminded of Heine's famous comparison of Meyerbeer's Huguenots to a Gothic cathedral, built by 'a giant in the conception and design of the whole, a dwarf in the exhaustive execution of detail'.

A rich and solid plot, with many leads to follow (the various investigators continually find new information) and the reader knowing as much as (and deducing less than) the police, make it a fascinating work. The plot is an elaborate plan to disarm suspicion (alibi) and incriminate another man. The only flaw is that the final chapter feels somewhat rushed--we should have seen the murderer's suicide, rather than being told about it at second-hand.