Vernon Loder was een pseudoniem van John George Hazlette Vahey, een Anglo-Ierse schrijver. Hij schreef onder verschillende namen, wat wijst op een veelzijdige literaire carrière. Zijn diverse oeuvre suggereert een auteur die bedreven was in het verkennen van verschillende genres en stijlen, en de lezers een breed spectrum aan literaire ervaringen bood.
"Inspector Brews, having been summoned to Marsh House to meet the chief editor of The Daily Record, instead finds Hay Smith's body, still clutching the torn corners of several sheets of paper, near to an open window in the newspaper proprietor, Sir James Sitheby's, study. Brews is faced with a motey crew of suspects at Sir James' country house -- including journalists, an editor, a gossip-writer and a novelist, all seemingly with an axe to grind." -- Back cover.
Ned Hope, a writer of detective stories, takes Nancy Johnson, his fiancée, to view his recent purchase, Fen Court, a neglected house with three acres located in the Essex marshes. While touring the property, they discover 3 bodies in a pond, marking the beginning of a real life detective tale.
The delight of Christmas shoppers at the unveiling of a London department store's famous window display turns to horror when one of the mannequins is discovered to be a dead body ... Mander's Department Store in London's West End is so famous for its elaborate window displays that on Monday mornings crowds gather to watch the window blinds being raised on a new weekly display. On this particular Monday, just a few weeks before Christmas, the onlookers quickly realise that one of the figures is in fact a human corpse, placed among the wax mannequins. Then a second body is discovered, and this striking tableau begins a baffling and complex case for Inspector Devenish of Scotland Yard
First published by Collins in 1928, this was the first of 22 mystery novels by Vernon Loder, one of the most popular British mystery-thriller writers of his generation.