The rasp

Anthony Gethryn, a former Secret Service agent, is passing the time with a job at a newspaper when he is sent to report on a killing. The victim is John Hoode, a Cabinet minister, found beaten to death at his country home with a woodworker's rasp.

The police have a prime suspect: Hoode's secretary, Alan Deacon. Gethryn is convinced Deacon is innocent. Clearing him means persuading the officers that other people close to the case have alibis that do not hold up.

This is a classic detective novel and the first case for Gethryn, who goes on to become a famed gentleman detective. It belongs to the Golden Age of the genre, and the plot turns on who was where at the time of the murder.

This edition is part of the Detective Story Club, a series of classic detective novels reissued from the HarperCollins archive. It carries an introduction by Tony Medawar, a crime fiction expert and writer, who looks at the forgotten career of its author, Philip MacDonald.