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Blueprint for Murder
Wealthy industrialist Charles Hollison is found bludgeoned to death shortly after his son, Geoffrey, and nephew, Arthur Cross, return from World War II. As the principal beneficiaries of Charles' will, both men are suspects. Inspector James, called in to investigate, thinks he knows which of them is guilty.
253 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1948
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About the author
Roger Bax
10 books2 followersAKA: Andrew Garve, Paul Somers
Roger Bax was the pen name of Paul Winterton (1908-2001), who also wrote as Andrew Garve and Paul Somers. He was born in Leicester and educated at the Hulme Grammar School, Manchester and Purley County School, Surrey, after which he took a degree in Economics at London University. He was on the staff of The Economist for four years, and then worked for fourteen years for the London News Chronicle as reporter, leader writer and foreign correspondent. He was assigned to Moscow from 1942 to 1945, where he was also the correspondent of the BBC’s Overseas Service.
After the war he turned to full-time writing of detective and adventure novels and produced more than forty-five books. His work was serialized, televised, broadcast, filmed and translated into some twenty languages. He was noted for his varied and unusual backgrounds – including Russia, newspaper offices, the West Indies, ocean sailing, the Australian outback, politics, mountaineering and forestry – and for never repeating a plot.
Paul Winterton was a founding member and first joint secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association.
Roger Bax was the pen name of Paul Winterton (1908-2001), who also wrote as Andrew Garve and Paul Somers. He was born in Leicester and educated at the Hulme Grammar School, Manchester and Purley County School, Surrey, after which he took a degree in Economics at London University. He was on the staff of The Economist for four years, and then worked for fourteen years for the London News Chronicle as reporter, leader writer and foreign correspondent. He was assigned to Moscow from 1942 to 1945, where he was also the correspondent of the BBC’s Overseas Service.
After the war he turned to full-time writing of detective and adventure novels and produced more than forty-five books. His work was serialized, televised, broadcast, filmed and translated into some twenty languages. He was noted for his varied and unusual backgrounds – including Russia, newspaper offices, the West Indies, ocean sailing, the Australian outback, politics, mountaineering and forestry – and for never repeating a plot.
Paul Winterton was a founding member and first joint secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
September 8, 2017
This is not a typical mystery where a crime is committed and you try to figure out who did it. Instead, the story revolves around the killer who's planning for the perfect murder and expecting to get away with it. However, after committing the crime, he later realizes that his perfect murder wasn't that perfect and you keep wondering when he'll get caught.
October 25, 2019
Blueprint for Murder (1948) by Roger Bax* is a rare thing for me--an inverted mystery. I generally find it very difficult to enjoy a mystery novel where there is very little mystery. The blurb on the back of my edition tries to make it seem more like a standard detective novel:
Wealthy industrialist Charles Hollison is found bludgeoned to death shortly after his son, Geoffrey, and nephew, Arthur Cross, return from World War II. As the principal beneficiaries of Charles's will, both men are suspects. Inspector James, called in to investigate, thinks he knows which of them is guilty.
But we know from the beginning who the guilty party is (Inspector James is right). And a nasty piece of work he is too.
When we first meet Arthur Cross, he is on the run towards the end of the war. He has made his way from a Nazi concentration camp (wearing a German uniform, by the way) and is trying to put as much distance between himself and the Germans and the invading Russians as possible. When he's just about on his last legs, a kindly Polish man and his daughter take him in after listening to his tale of an escape from the camp which involved knocking out a guard and stealing his uniform. He repays their kindness by murdering them. And we get our first glimpse of just how cold-blooded he is.
Upon his return to England, both he and his cousin Geoffrey are welcomed with gladness by Geoffrey's father, Charles. Arthur's parents died while he was young and Charles took him in and raised him as if he were another son. The elderly gentleman offers them both shares in the family business, a comfortable salary, and a home with him if they'd like it. He also (inadvisedly) tells them that he plans to update his will, leaving the bulk of his estate between them.
Arthur has no desire to kick his heels in a stodgy business job. He plans to live life hard and fast (and fun) and needs a large influx of cash sooner rather than later. He also has pressing reasons to leave Europe and head for somewhere more remote. So, despite unemotionally recognizing how generous and kind Charles has been (and is being) to him, he begins methodically plotting his death. His goal is create an unbreakable alibi that will allow him to do the deed and even be suspected, but give the police no way to prove him guilty. And he does a pretty good job--using a method and devices that I'd not encountered before in my murderous reading. Once the crime is committed, the second leg of the book is spent wondering if Inspector James will find a break in the impenetrable alibi.
But, of course, there is one little thing that Arthur didn't think about...and when that begins to fall apart, the last leg of the book turns into a thriller with Arthur forcing his cousin to take him by boat into a raging winter storm and help him escape to Holland. Geoffrey must find a way to scuttle Arthur's plans and save both himself and the girl he loves.
This is a bit of a mixed bag for me. On the plus side, this is a marvelously plotted inverted mystery and I want to give credit to Bax for giving me an inverted mystery that I could appreciate. Bax has given Arthur the means to devise what really looks like an unbreakable alibi. I began to think that he might actually get away with it. And I thought the means by which his plot unravels was cleverly done as well. The ending was exciting and suspenseful without being too over-the-top (especially for a mystery portrayed in my edition as a police procedural). Negative points: there really is very little of Inspector James in this and very little actual detecting going on. James does a bit of interviewing--but most of the work is done off-stage. And, for me, there was way too much time spent with this cold-blooded, vicious killer and watching him plot the murder of a kindly, inoffensive man. But, even though it's really out of my comfort zone, it's a darn good mystery. ★★★★
*Bax is a pseudonym for Paul Winterton, an English journalist who wrote under the names of Bax, Andrew Garve and Paul Somers
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting review content. Thanks.
Wealthy industrialist Charles Hollison is found bludgeoned to death shortly after his son, Geoffrey, and nephew, Arthur Cross, return from World War II. As the principal beneficiaries of Charles's will, both men are suspects. Inspector James, called in to investigate, thinks he knows which of them is guilty.
But we know from the beginning who the guilty party is (Inspector James is right). And a nasty piece of work he is too.
When we first meet Arthur Cross, he is on the run towards the end of the war. He has made his way from a Nazi concentration camp (wearing a German uniform, by the way) and is trying to put as much distance between himself and the Germans and the invading Russians as possible. When he's just about on his last legs, a kindly Polish man and his daughter take him in after listening to his tale of an escape from the camp which involved knocking out a guard and stealing his uniform. He repays their kindness by murdering them. And we get our first glimpse of just how cold-blooded he is.
Upon his return to England, both he and his cousin Geoffrey are welcomed with gladness by Geoffrey's father, Charles. Arthur's parents died while he was young and Charles took him in and raised him as if he were another son. The elderly gentleman offers them both shares in the family business, a comfortable salary, and a home with him if they'd like it. He also (inadvisedly) tells them that he plans to update his will, leaving the bulk of his estate between them.
Arthur has no desire to kick his heels in a stodgy business job. He plans to live life hard and fast (and fun) and needs a large influx of cash sooner rather than later. He also has pressing reasons to leave Europe and head for somewhere more remote. So, despite unemotionally recognizing how generous and kind Charles has been (and is being) to him, he begins methodically plotting his death. His goal is create an unbreakable alibi that will allow him to do the deed and even be suspected, but give the police no way to prove him guilty. And he does a pretty good job--using a method and devices that I'd not encountered before in my murderous reading. Once the crime is committed, the second leg of the book is spent wondering if Inspector James will find a break in the impenetrable alibi.
But, of course, there is one little thing that Arthur didn't think about...and when that begins to fall apart, the last leg of the book turns into a thriller with Arthur forcing his cousin to take him by boat into a raging winter storm and help him escape to Holland. Geoffrey must find a way to scuttle Arthur's plans and save both himself and the girl he loves.
This is a bit of a mixed bag for me. On the plus side, this is a marvelously plotted inverted mystery and I want to give credit to Bax for giving me an inverted mystery that I could appreciate. Bax has given Arthur the means to devise what really looks like an unbreakable alibi. I began to think that he might actually get away with it. And I thought the means by which his plot unravels was cleverly done as well. The ending was exciting and suspenseful without being too over-the-top (especially for a mystery portrayed in my edition as a police procedural). Negative points: there really is very little of Inspector James in this and very little actual detecting going on. James does a bit of interviewing--but most of the work is done off-stage. And, for me, there was way too much time spent with this cold-blooded, vicious killer and watching him plot the murder of a kindly, inoffensive man. But, even though it's really out of my comfort zone, it's a darn good mystery. ★★★★
*Bax is a pseudonym for Paul Winterton, an English journalist who wrote under the names of Bax, Andrew Garve and Paul Somers
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting review content. Thanks.
March 18, 2019
A crime novel that really falls into three parts yet by whose end I felt as if everything had been pulled together very satisfactorily. One carp: This is billed as an "Inspector James Mystery" yet there's actually very little detection involved in the tale. Essentially, James (who's here no more than a relatively minor support character) gets nowhere in his police-procedural-style investigation. It's something else entirely that reveals to him and the world the guilt of the bad guy.
The first part of the book is an inverted mystery: We know exactly who killed wealthy paint manufacturer Charles Hollison, and why: his nephew Arthur Cross, for his share of the inheritance. We also know that Cross is a badhat and heartless psycho killer whose time spent supposedly in captivity during World War II was in reality spent as a foreign recruit to the SS, cruelly slaughtering the inmates of a concentration camp. In this first portion of the book we follow Arthur's preparation in considerable detail of "the perfect alibi" to let him kill his uncle without fear of prosecution.
The fun of inverted mysteries is of course watching out for the small, unanticipated detail that'll doom the murderer after he thinks he's gotten away with his crime. Here we get one of these within minutes after Cross has killed his uncle -- it's such a brilliant bolt from the blue that I laughed out loud in startlement and at its cleverness -- but in fact it proves to be a false alarm. Cross's evil scheme survives that apparent reversal, only for him to discover there's something else he never thought of . . .
The central portion of the novel works least well of the three, I feel. Despite his grief at the brutal murder of the father he loved, Cross's co-heir, Hollison's son Geoffrey, falls in love with the trainee doctor, Pamela, who discovered the body. I found a lot to disbelieve in this romance, and the dialogue between the two is often gooey to the point of nausea. Still, this strand of the plot is effectively offset against the scumminess of Cross and his attempts to make sure he is indeed clear of suspicion.
The third portion of Blueprint for Murder is an out-and-out thriller. Aboard a too-small boat in the midst of a major storm, battling fierce seas, Geoffrey must somehow save Pamela and himself while also thwarting Cross's plans to make an escape to Holland. I don't know much about boats and boating, but this element of the tale seemed perfectly authentic within the bounds of my limited knowledge; certainly it was convincing enough to make my pulse race and my palms go clammy as I sped through the pages toward the novel's conclusion!
"Roger Bax" was a pseudonym used by journalist Paul Winterton for some of his crime novels; his other pseudonyms included Andrew Garve and Paul Somers. (Winterton was quite an interesting guy: you can read a little more about him here.) I know I read one or two of the Andrew Garve outings back in the day, although I now couldn't for the life of me even guess at which ones they were. To judge by Blueprint for Murder I ought to investigate Bax/Garve/Somers's work a bit more.
I see Aidan at Mysteries Ahoy! has a pretty full account of the novel here; pleasingly, his verdict is much the same as mine.
The first part of the book is an inverted mystery: We know exactly who killed wealthy paint manufacturer Charles Hollison, and why: his nephew Arthur Cross, for his share of the inheritance. We also know that Cross is a badhat and heartless psycho killer whose time spent supposedly in captivity during World War II was in reality spent as a foreign recruit to the SS, cruelly slaughtering the inmates of a concentration camp. In this first portion of the book we follow Arthur's preparation in considerable detail of "the perfect alibi" to let him kill his uncle without fear of prosecution.
The fun of inverted mysteries is of course watching out for the small, unanticipated detail that'll doom the murderer after he thinks he's gotten away with his crime. Here we get one of these within minutes after Cross has killed his uncle -- it's such a brilliant bolt from the blue that I laughed out loud in startlement and at its cleverness -- but in fact it proves to be a false alarm. Cross's evil scheme survives that apparent reversal, only for him to discover there's something else he never thought of . . .
The central portion of the novel works least well of the three, I feel. Despite his grief at the brutal murder of the father he loved, Cross's co-heir, Hollison's son Geoffrey, falls in love with the trainee doctor, Pamela, who discovered the body. I found a lot to disbelieve in this romance, and the dialogue between the two is often gooey to the point of nausea. Still, this strand of the plot is effectively offset against the scumminess of Cross and his attempts to make sure he is indeed clear of suspicion.
The third portion of Blueprint for Murder is an out-and-out thriller. Aboard a too-small boat in the midst of a major storm, battling fierce seas, Geoffrey must somehow save Pamela and himself while also thwarting Cross's plans to make an escape to Holland. I don't know much about boats and boating, but this element of the tale seemed perfectly authentic within the bounds of my limited knowledge; certainly it was convincing enough to make my pulse race and my palms go clammy as I sped through the pages toward the novel's conclusion!
"Roger Bax" was a pseudonym used by journalist Paul Winterton for some of his crime novels; his other pseudonyms included Andrew Garve and Paul Somers. (Winterton was quite an interesting guy: you can read a little more about him here.) I know I read one or two of the Andrew Garve outings back in the day, although I now couldn't for the life of me even guess at which ones they were. To judge by Blueprint for Murder I ought to investigate Bax/Garve/Somers's work a bit more.
I see Aidan at Mysteries Ahoy! has a pretty full account of the novel here; pleasingly, his verdict is much the same as mine.
March 18, 2025
Written in 1948, this gripping novel set in post-war England begins with the question that Arthur Cross poses to himself: why was it so easy to kill thousands of people and so difficult to kill one man? This is the puzzler that he faces when he returns, a changed man, from a prison camp. He has seen and participated in horrors, and now he wants to enjoy life. His uncle has plenty of money, and it seems to Arthur that one more death should not matter to him if it means he can finally enjoy living. He devotes real time and effort to creating a murder plot to get rid of his uncle, a blueprint that he enacts one foggy night. The second half of the book has Inspector James on his trail trying to unravel how the murder occurred.
I found the pages where Cross plots the murder to be a little dry and technical. The action occurred only in Cross' always thinking mind. The second half of the book was much more engaging. The tense relationship between the Inspector and Cross was tautly written, and there was a charming romance between Arthur's cousin Geoffrey and the doctor's daughter, Pamela who first tended the murdered uncle. (She was in medical school herself, so it's a forward looking portrayal of a female character). As Arthur stays alert for the one mistake he inevitably made, James presses and probes to find the weakness in his story. What starts as a mind game becomes an exciting escape and chase sequence. I am in a spring cleaning mood, and I really picked this book up to give it a last read before donating it, but as things happen, I have decided to keep it.
I found the pages where Cross plots the murder to be a little dry and technical. The action occurred only in Cross' always thinking mind. The second half of the book was much more engaging. The tense relationship between the Inspector and Cross was tautly written, and there was a charming romance between Arthur's cousin Geoffrey and the doctor's daughter, Pamela who first tended the murdered uncle. (She was in medical school herself, so it's a forward looking portrayal of a female character). As Arthur stays alert for the one mistake he inevitably made, James presses and probes to find the weakness in his story. What starts as a mind game becomes an exciting escape and chase sequence. I am in a spring cleaning mood, and I really picked this book up to give it a last read before donating it, but as things happen, I have decided to keep it.
July 26, 2023
CAWPILE 5.57
A classic mystery, first published in 1948 by Roger Bax one of the many pseudonyms of Paul Winterton- who went on to be a founding member of the Crime Writers Association in 1953.
This inverted mystery was a compelling read, despite it's short length it was very impactful and I thought rather clever given how from the first page you know who did it and how. The scenes at sea were very atmospheric and climactic at the end of the book. I imagine it would have caused quite a stir when it was published given the mentions of WW2 and the nazi concentration camps as well as the harrowing actions that occurred in them given that it was published only 3 years after the war.
A classic mystery, first published in 1948 by Roger Bax one of the many pseudonyms of Paul Winterton- who went on to be a founding member of the Crime Writers Association in 1953.
This inverted mystery was a compelling read, despite it's short length it was very impactful and I thought rather clever given how from the first page you know who did it and how. The scenes at sea were very atmospheric and climactic at the end of the book. I imagine it would have caused quite a stir when it was published given the mentions of WW2 and the nazi concentration camps as well as the harrowing actions that occurred in them given that it was published only 3 years after the war.
February 24, 2014
A crime novel where you know the murderer from the start. You find yourself wodering, instead of who killed the victom, how he is going to be caught in the end. Well written and enjoyable.
September 12, 2022
A thoroughly engrossing suspense thriller . Unlike what I expected after reading some reviews ,this was a very likable book even though there some nasty characters including the protagonist .The planning of the first crime was fascinating and it was good that the question of conscience never arose and I very much liked the dispatch of the second victim for entirely different reasons. There are lots of comic relief as well because of Inspector James and his sidekick and the book has a taut end . I liked the sea boating sequence very interesting compared to the "Riddle of the sands" .
This was my first Winterton book and now I feel much eager to read those other 3 novels by Garve ,which are waiting on my bookshelf waiting for their turn.
This was my first Winterton book and now I feel much eager to read those other 3 novels by Garve ,which are waiting on my bookshelf waiting for their turn.
December 7, 2022
An interesting read ,part crime fiction part psychological analysis of a very disturbed evil individual.The Inspector James named on the cover is hardly in the book but that's okay as he seems rather nondescript anyway.It's an entertaining story ,I guess it could be placed in the golden age of crime bracket.The main protagonist is a thoroughly horrid character so the end made me smile.I think the author definitely must have had a penchant for boats and sailing as his knowledge of this genre later on in the story seem clear.I presume this was a one off and not a series with Inspector James as we don't learn anything about him really and he seems so bland and grey .Still,a well written.... thriller..... enjoyed it....
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 26, 2018
Run-of-the-mill until an exciting conclusion.
December 14, 2014
This was one of the most riveting tales I've read in a very long time. It's one that I read in one day: so fast was the sequence of events. Blueprint for Murder is listed as an "Inspector James Mystery" but there really are a few main characters, of whom James is just one.
I thought the whole approach to the story was rather innovative. The murderer is known from the opening pages, and the reader's ever-so-brief trust in this, what seems to be the main character, quickly sours, leaving a broad cast of characters to carry the story forward. The great suspense is in precisely how the Inspector will perceive the killer, who spent much effort in executing the perfect crime.
What follows is a thrilling series of actions that drive the suspense all the way to the final page. What a fun read!
I thought the whole approach to the story was rather innovative. The murderer is known from the opening pages, and the reader's ever-so-brief trust in this, what seems to be the main character, quickly sours, leaving a broad cast of characters to carry the story forward. The great suspense is in precisely how the Inspector will perceive the killer, who spent much effort in executing the perfect crime.
What follows is a thrilling series of actions that drive the suspense all the way to the final page. What a fun read!
October 13, 2015
This is one of the most boring novels i have ever had the misfortune of reading on the cover it implies a mystery but to the reader there is no mystery we know who killed who and therefore calling this a mystery is bs what this book is its a boring crime fiction novel that has the main idiotic murderer plan out his crime in soo much detail and i mean detail this writer literally thought it would be wise to waste 80 pages on this whole planning by this moron who wants to kill his uncle so he can get the inheritance the old man is kind and a decent human being but his nephew is unfortunately a stupid scumbag who ends up killing his uncle so he can get the money his motives are so stupid considering his uncle was 65 and would likely pass away due to natural causes soon so it makes the killing even more stupid and pointless
February 9, 2013
This book started well, and differently, with the planning of the murder. After that, I felt it fell short. There was no suspense to it, the plan fell apart due to a random coincidence which I didn't feel was necessarily believable (it COULD happen, but why should it have?). Further, despite it being an "Inspector James mystery", other than a cameo here and there and a hunch he did nothing to solve the murder, break the alibi, or in any way lend himself to the solving of the case. Loved the first part. The rest of the book was a disappointment.
February 9, 2015
A very good page turner: hard to put down. Not really a detective story though, more a thriller. Inspector James doesn't feature very much.
The author has created a truly evil villain in Arthur Cross and the chilling descriptions of his character and deeds, I thought, were very skillfully written. The reader cannot help to really loathe him, he is so vile.
I don't normally like inverted mysteries all that much but this one is very good. However, I would have liked a bit more detection.
The author has created a truly evil villain in Arthur Cross and the chilling descriptions of his character and deeds, I thought, were very skillfully written. The reader cannot help to really loathe him, he is so vile.
I don't normally like inverted mysteries all that much but this one is very good. However, I would have liked a bit more detection.
December 23, 2015
Not a whodunnit but a whydunnit and a what-happens-after-he-dunnit. We don't try to figure out a puzzle for an impossible crime but watch as a puzzle is constructed. Apparently this is the first of a series involving Inspector James, but he plays almost no role in the plot in this book, so Bax hasn't given himself much to work with.
July 23, 2012
Fantastic novel, well written.
September 30, 2015
I realise this was written for its time but even so lacks the pace you would expect from pulp fiction of the era. May well read a lot better if you skip the plot-spoiler prologue.
April 10, 2017
A book with a gripping start and a soporific finish. In the beginning, it looks like it's going to be a really well-written Columbo-style "howcatchem." The elaborate plotting of the murder is brilliant, as is the beginning of his attempts to cover his tracks. But then, after the petrol station incident, the whole plot goes downhill, as it becomes clear that he isn't going to be caught in any interesting way at all. The final chapters provide merely a page-turning exercise, accompanied by a vain hope that things would become interesting again. Still, it gets two stars just because the first part of the book is so brilliant.
July 27, 2017
With a thoroughly unlikeable protagonist and a (small) host of well-defined characters, this is a good little book. Not much in the way of detecting from Inspector James, I almost forgot about him!
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews