Crossword Mystery

George Winterton devises a crossword with an odd purpose. His brother has just drowned, and Winterton fears he will be the next to die. The puzzle forms part of a game for high stakes, and its clues carry a meaning beyond the grid.

Detective-Constable Owen, who holds an Oxford B.A. with a pass degree only, arrives in the village of Suffby Cove. There he meets a murder of unusual ingenuity, and a detail that should have happened and did not: the dog never barked.

The case does not stay in England. Its consequences reach across to the continent and touch the lives of many men and women, so the inquiry widens well beyond the village.

First published in 1934, the book is the third of the Bobby Owen mysteries, a series that eventually ran to thirty-five novels. Readers get a puzzle-centred whodunit in a picturesque village, where the crossword and the silent dog are the first clues to follow.