The Noose

Colonel Anthony Ruthven Gethryn is on holiday in Spain, his mother's country, when he is called back to London. November fog hangs over the city, and a murder needs solving. Gethryn is also an unlikely part owner of the magazine The Owl.

At home he finds his wife Lucia has taken in Mrs Bronson. Her husband sits in prison, condemned for killing a gamekeeper six months earlier. A petition for reprieve has been turned down, and the hanging is close.

Mrs Bronson persuades Gethryn that her husband is innocent. He sets out to clear Bronson and to identify the man who really did the killing. The staff of The Owl help him, as does a Scotland Yard detective who is officially on holiday.

The case is a detective novel built on a countdown. Every day brings the appointed morning nearer, when Bronson will make his last walk at nine o'clock. Gethryn has little time and, by every sign, almost no chance of proving who is guilty. The book was published in 1930 and was the first title in the Crime Club imprint.