For Murder Will Speak

For Murder Will Speak is a 1938 detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington.Murphy p.152Evans p.207-8 It is the thirteenth in a series of novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield. The title references a line from Shakespeare's Hamlet. It was released in the United States by Little, Brown and Company under the alternative title Murder Will Speak.Reilly p.347

After the novel Connington took a brief break from Driffield and produced two books The Counsellor and The Four Defences with a new detective, radio personality Mark Brand, as the lead character.Evans p.231-32

Synopsis A series of poison pen letters disrupt the harmony of an English town. An embezzling manager at a financial company, spending his spare time trying to conduct multiple romantic affairs, comes under scrutiny. However it is the unexplained death of a young woman in Scotland that slowly begins to unravel the case. When the cheating manager is then found dead, the two cases begin to merge.

References

Bibliography Evans, Curtis. Masters of the "Humdrum" Mystery: Cecil John Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, Alfred Walter Stewart and the British Detective Novel, 1920-1961. McFarland, 2014. Hubin, Allen J. Crime Fiction, 1749-1980: A Comprehensive Bibliography. Garland Publishing, 1984. Murphy, Bruce F. The Encyclopedia of Murder and Mystery. Springer, 1999. Reilly, John M. Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers. Springer, 2015.