The cover page is adapted from A Street at Night in Wet Weather, a painting completed circa 1920 by Edward Steel Harper. The cover and title pages feature the League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by The League of Moveable Type. www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
The Middle of Things
Chapitres (29)
- I: Faced with Reality 0:00
- II: Number Seven in the Square 17:45
- III: Who Was Mr. Ashton? 34:15
- IV: The Ring and the Knife 50:43
- V: Look for That Man! 1:06:35
- VI: Speculations 1:23:13
- VII: What Was the Secret? 1:39:17
- VIII: News from Arcadia 1:55:06
- IX: Looking Backward 2:11:12
- X: The Parish Register 2:28:49
- XI: What Happened in Paris 2:45:50
- XII: The Grey Mare Inn 3:01:59
- XIII: The Japanese Cabinet 3:18:11
- XIV: The Ellingham Motto 3:34:03
- XV: The Present Holder 3:50:45
- XVI: The Outhouse 4:07:31
- XVII: The Claimant 4:22:27
- XVIII: Let Him Appear! 4:38:51
- XIX: Under Examination 4:55:00
- XX: Surprising Readiness 5:11:23
- XXI: The Marseilles Meeting 5:27:53
- XXII: On Remand 5:44:24
- XXIII: Is This Man Right? 6:01:10
- XXIV: The Broken Letter 6:18:56
- XXV: Through the Telephone 6:35:23
- XXVI: The Dismal Street 6:51:27
- XXVII: The Back Way 7:08:01
- XXVIII: The Truth 7:23:43
- XXIX: Who Is to Tell Her? 7:43:19
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Shortly after Richard Viner complains to his murder-mystery-loving aunt with whom he lives that such fiction couldn’t possibly “really represent life,” he himself finds a dead body in the lane behind his home. It turns out to be his neighbor, a man in his sixties, recently returned to England from Australia to care for the affairs of his ward, an accomplished young woman not long out of school. The police seem content to regard the crime as motivated by robbery, but Viner and his aunt, like the lawyers who get embroiled in the case, are convinced there is more to it than that.
It seems clear that J. S. Fletcher took at least some inspiration for this work from the famous Tichborne case, one of the most celebrated legal mysteries of late nineteenth century England. It involved a contested identity which, if proved, would bring an enormous inheritance and position of privilege.
Fletcher puts his own spin on things and constructs yet another intriguing plot line, solved only with the help of his intrepid amateur sleuths.