Considered one of Freeman Wills Crofts’ best works, Inspector French’s Greatest Case is an out-of-print masterpiece of detective fiction. It was first published in 1924. It was selected by Howard Haycraft to be one of the works included in the ultimate mystery list: The Haycraft-Queen Definitive Library of Detective-Crime-Mystery Fiction, Two Centuries of Cornerstones 1748-1948.

Unlike other mystery writers who have made the police appear to be incompetent, Crofts has given us the brilliant Inspector French, a first class investigator, albeit within the ranks of Scotland Yard. Charles Gething, head clerk at London’s Duke and Peabody’s, diamond merchants, is found murdered in front of the firm’s open safe. Inspector French is assigned the case, which he works on methodically, through a series of fascinating clues, in England and abroad. Crofts rewards us with a highly entertaining, thoroughly satisfying, classic British mystery story.