The Crystal Beads Murder: 4 (The Inspector Stoddart Mysteries)

"Early this morning a gruesome discovery was made by a gardener employed at Holford Hall in Loamshire..."

Robert Saunderson's murdered body is found in the summer house at Lord Medchester's country mansion. Some crystal beads, broken off a neckace and found on the scene, form the primary clue. But where is the necklace, and whose could it be?

Detective Inspector Stoddart and his assistant Harbord have to unravel a mystery that cost two men their lives and destroyed the reputation of others.

The Crystal Beads Murder, first published in 1930, was the last of the Inspector Stoddart mysteries, and Annie Haynes' final book overall. She died, after a long illness, before completing it and it was finished by an unknown friend and fellow writer. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

"An uncommonly well-constructed tale... throughout the reader is kept continually on the 'qui vive'" Western Australian

Annie Haynes was born in 1865, the daughter of an ironmonger. By the first decade of the twentieth century she lived in London and moved in literary and early feminist circles. Her first crime novel, The Bungalow Mystery, appeared in 1923, and another nine mysteries were published before her untimely death in 1929. Who Killed Charmian Karslake? appeared posthumously, and a further partially-finished work, The Crystal Beads Murder, was completed with the assistance of an unknown fellow writer, and published in 1930.