The Spirit Murder Mystery

Thrusting his pipe in his pocket, he crossed to his writing desk. Extracting a heavy army-pattern revolver from a drawer, he began silently to search the whole ground floor of the house.

Eileen Thurlow, an ardent devotee of spiritualism, persuades her uncle John to join her in a séance which produces the eerie sound of organ music. Later that same night John Thurlow disappears. A day later two bodies, one of them John Thurlow’s, are found in a field half a mile away. Victims of supernatural vengeance, a fatal duel… or base murder? Algernon Vereker, sojourning in the neighbourhood, is eager to investigate the mystery, however chilling its premise. He is joined by Inspector Heather of the Yard, and his trusty, high-spirited friend Ricky, to solve a crime which might send shivers up the spine of even a committed sceptic. The Spirit Murder Mystery (1936) is another satisfying but merry mystery, the fifth and last of the Algernon Vereker novels. It includes a new introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans. ‘Mr. Forsythe belongs to the new school of detective story writers which might be called the brilliant flippant school.’ J.B. Priestley

Author Biography

Robin Forsythe was born Robert Forsythe in 1879. His place of birth was Sialkot, in modern day Pakistan. His mother died when a younger brother was born two years later, and ‘Robin’ was brought up by an ayah until he was six, when he returned to the United Kingdom, and went to school in Glasgow and Northern Ireland. In his teens he had short stories and poetry published and went to London wanting to be a writer. He married in 1909 and had a son the following year, later working as a clerk at Somerset House in London when he was arrested for theft and fraud in 1928. Sentenced to fifteen months, he began to write his first detective novel in prison. On his release in 1929 Robin Forsythe published his debut, Missing or Murdered. It introduced Anthony ‘Algernon’ Vereker, an eccentric artist with an extraordinary flair for detective work. It was followed by four more detective novels in the Vereker series, ending with The Spirit Murder Mystery in 1936. All the novels are characterized by the sharp plotting and witty dialogue which epitomize the more effervescent side of golden age crime fiction. Robin Forsythe died in 1937.