Selected by Martin Edward as one of his 100 Classic Crime novels in The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books‘Ambitious and genuinely distinctive … [a] neglected gem’ _Martin Edwards_This 2026 Spitfire Publishers edition includes a complete bibliography of Lynn Brock’s detective novels‘There is genius in Mr Brock’s power of charging a moment with noises, colour and feeling until it seems more real than life… ought to have been written by Edgar Allan Poe’ Times Literary Supplement In the once-elegant suburb of Rockwood, a grand house has been carved into flats, its faded respectability sheltering a cast of uneasy neighbours. The walls are thin, the staircases echo with footsteps, and the relentless blare of a gramophone from the top floor torments all below. In the midst of this claustrophobic setting, Simon Whalley—an unsuccessful novelist—struggles with declining health, financial anxiety, and the slow erosion of hope. His days are marked by petty grievances, endless housework, and the gnawing sense of failure. When a neighbour’s maid is found brutally murdered, suspicion and paranoia ripple through the building. As Simon’s isolation deepens, his grip on reality falters, and the line between victim and perpetrator begins to blur. About the Author Lynn Brock was the pen name of Alexander Patrick McAllister, an Irish‑born writer who became one of the more distinctive, if now under‑appreciated, figures of the Golden Age of detective fiction. He was born in Dublin in 1877 and educated at the National University of Ireland, where he later worked for over a decade as a university administrator. Before turning fully to fiction, McAllister enjoyed early success as a playwright under the name Anthony P. Wharton, his play Irene Wycherley being staged in London in 1907 and New York in 1908 (‘Exceptionally impressive’ New York Times). He also used ‘Alister McAllister’ as another pen name. During the First World War he served with the British Army, including a period in military intelligence, and was wounded twice in France. In the 1920s he turned decisively to crime fiction, writing a series of complex and intellectually demanding detective novels under the Lynn Brock pseudonym. His principal creation was Colonel Wyckham Gore, a retired military man whose cases – beginning with The Deductions of Colonel Gore (1924) – were admired for their density, psychological depth and intricate plotting. Brock’s novels, often set in rural English landscapes, were popular in their day and praised by contemporaries including Dorothy L. Sayers and T.S. Eliot, though his demanding style later fell out of fashion. He died in Dorset in 1943, aged 65. Praise for Lynn Brock ‘Characters–humour–lively plot, ingeniously unravelled’ Evening Standard ‘Colonel Gore is one of the most attractive of detective sleuths’ The Daily Mail ‘Commended without reservation. It will be a shrewd student of detective yarns who solves the secret of the slaying of Dr Melhuish’ New York Times ‘A masterpiece, while some of Lynn Brock’s chapters belong in an ordinary detective story others have the flavour of literature… genius’ Times Literary Supplement