‘Quite charming… devotees of mystery yarns will enjoy this story’ New York Times‘A quintessentially English country-house mystery with a touch of the exotic’ Martin Edwards‘A model of the detective story… the solution has the neatness of a bold mate at chess’ Glasgow HeraldSelected by Martin Edward as one of his 100 Classic Crime novels in The Story of Classic Crime in 100 BooksThis 2024 Spitfire Publishers ebook and paperback edition includes a complete bibliography of Victor Whitechurch’s crime novels The Pleasaunce was a fine country house nestling below the hills which flanked the picturesque village of Coppleswick, deep in southern England. Today, its new owner, mysterious ex-diplomat Felix Nayland is playing host to the county worthies. The lavish summer garden party laid on to introduce Felix and his sister Alice to the community is in full swing. The Green Albanian Band and Western Glee Singers are entertaining Nayland’s guests including young local vicar, Harry Westerham and Major Challow, the Chief Constable of Downshire. Leaving the party the Vicar and Major take a shortcut through the estate’s water garden and make a horrifying discovery – a man lying face down dead in an ornamental pool. A knife embedded deep in his back. The shrewd and observant Vicar turns amateur sleuth ably assisting the industrious Detective Sergeant Ringwood. About the Author Victor Lorenzo Whitechurch was a Church of England clergyman and noted English crime novelist. He was born in Norham, Northumberland in 1868 and trained to be a vicar at Chichester Theological College and Durham University. Relatively late in life Victor became rather infatuated with the detective novel and between 1912 and 1932 wrote eight, many centred around the fictional South Downs cathedral and university city of Frattenbury, and often featuring members of the clergy. He was one of the founding members of the Detection Club and contributed to the Club’s collaborative novel The Floating Admiral, published in 1931, which also featured Agatha Christie Dorothy L. Sayers, and G.K. Chesterton. His most famous literary creation however, is amateur railway detective Thorpe Hazelle, a wealthy, vegetarian fitness fanatic who starred in Thrilling Stories of the Railway (recently dramatized for BBC Radio 4 and featuring Benedict Cumberbatch). Ellery Queen described Hazelle as ‘the first of the speciality detectives’. Another was the young detective clergyman, Reverend Harry Westerham, who appeared in The Crime at Diana’s Pool, described by Martin Edwards in The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books as ‘A quintessentially English country-house mystery with a touch of the exotic.’ Victor Whitechurch died in 1933, aged 65. Praise for Victor L. Whitechurch ‘Should delight those who take pleasure in pitting their analytical abilities against those of the sleuth created by the author’ New York Times ‘Enthralling… keeps the reader keenly interested’ Boston Transcript ‘Victor Whitechurch is at his best in Murder at the Pageant’ The Sunday Times ‘Whitechurch’s writing was of a higher quality than that of many other detective novelists of his time’ Martin Edwards ‘A novel of exceptional charm’ The Scotsman