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Dr. Priestley #28
Invisible Weapons
A classic crime novel by one of the most highly regarded exponents of the genre. The murder of old Mr Fransham while washing his hands in his niece’s cloakroom was one of the most astounding problems that ever confronted Scotland Yard. Not only was there a policeman in the house at the time, but there was an ugly wound in the victim’s forehead and nothing in the locked room that could have inflicted it. The combined efforts of Superintendent Hanslet and Inspector Waghorn brought no answer and the case was dropped. It was only after another equally baffling murder had been committed that Dr Lancelot Priestley’s orderly and imaginative deductions began to make the connections that would solve this extraordinary case.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
9 people are currently reading
44 people want to read
About the author
John Rhode
152 books32 followersAKA Miles Burton, Cecil Waye, Cecil J.C. Street, I.O., F.O.O..
Cecil John Charles Street, MC, OBE, (1884 - January 1965), known as CJC Street and John Street, began his military career as an artillery officer in the British army. During the course of World War I, he became a propagandist for MI7, in which role he held the rank of Major. After the armistice, he alternated between Dublin and London during the Irish War of Independence as Information Officer for Dublin Castle, working closely with Lionel Curtis. He later earned his living as a prolific writer of detective novels.
He produced two long series of novels; one under the name of John Rhode featuring the forensic scientist Dr Priestley, and another under the name of Miles Burton featuring the investigator Desmond Merrion. Under the name Cecil Waye, Street produced four novels: The Figure of Eight; The End of the Chase; The Prime Minister's Pencil; and Murder at Monk's Barn. The Dr. Priestley novels were among the first after Sherlock Holmes to feature scientific detection of crime, such as analysing the mud on a suspect's shoes. Desmond Merrion is an amateur detective who works with Scotland Yard's Inspector Arnold.
Critic and author Julian Symons places this author as a prominent member of the "Humdrum" school of detective fiction. "Most of them came late to writing fiction, and few had much talent for it. They had some skill in constructing puzzles, nothing more, and ironically they fulfilled much better than S. S. Van Dine his dictum that the detective story properly belonged in the category of riddles or crossword puzzles. Most of the Humdrums were British, and among the best known of them were Major John Street.
-Wikipedia
Cecil John Charles Street, MC, OBE, (1884 - January 1965), known as CJC Street and John Street, began his military career as an artillery officer in the British army. During the course of World War I, he became a propagandist for MI7, in which role he held the rank of Major. After the armistice, he alternated between Dublin and London during the Irish War of Independence as Information Officer for Dublin Castle, working closely with Lionel Curtis. He later earned his living as a prolific writer of detective novels.
He produced two long series of novels; one under the name of John Rhode featuring the forensic scientist Dr Priestley, and another under the name of Miles Burton featuring the investigator Desmond Merrion. Under the name Cecil Waye, Street produced four novels: The Figure of Eight; The End of the Chase; The Prime Minister's Pencil; and Murder at Monk's Barn. The Dr. Priestley novels were among the first after Sherlock Holmes to feature scientific detection of crime, such as analysing the mud on a suspect's shoes. Desmond Merrion is an amateur detective who works with Scotland Yard's Inspector Arnold.
Critic and author Julian Symons places this author as a prominent member of the "Humdrum" school of detective fiction. "Most of them came late to writing fiction, and few had much talent for it. They had some skill in constructing puzzles, nothing more, and ironically they fulfilled much better than S. S. Van Dine his dictum that the detective story properly belonged in the category of riddles or crossword puzzles. Most of the Humdrums were British, and among the best known of them were Major John Street.
-Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
February 17, 2018
Strong (if not the best) Rhode mystery. Full review at classicmystery.wordpress.com
April 23, 2025
Three and a half stars.
Quite a readable, if slightly long winded and far fetched book. As usual Priestley doesn't appear all that much but solves the crimes by initially suggesting to the police which direction they should be looking in and then taking over himself at the end.
I quite enjoyed it but feel that this is not one of Rhode's better books and that he didn't quite play fair with the reader. Priestley is certainly not in the same league as R Austin Freeman's Thorndyke.
Quite a readable, if slightly long winded and far fetched book. As usual Priestley doesn't appear all that much but solves the crimes by initially suggesting to the police which direction they should be looking in and then taking over himself at the end.
I quite enjoyed it but feel that this is not one of Rhode's better books and that he didn't quite play fair with the reader. Priestley is certainly not in the same league as R Austin Freeman's Thorndyke.
November 23, 2019
In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in previously out of print traditional British detective stories that were written between the First and Second World Wars. This renaissance can be largely attributed to the publishing imprint ‘British Library Crime Classics’, which has successfully reintroduced to the reading public the works of long-forgotten writers such as J Jefferson Farjeon, John Bude, Mavis Doriel Hay and Raymond Postgate. (Other publishers are, I note, jumping on the bandwagon and trying to emulate the British Library’s unexpected success.) Another such novelist is John Rhode, a prolific writer of crime fiction under several names, who died in 1964. Although his story ‘Invisible Weapons’ is not, as far as I can tell, available as a ‘British Library Crime Classic’ - I borrowed a copy from the Barbican Library in London, which has a large stock of out of print British crime fiction of the 1930s and 1940s - it is typical of the books being published under that imprint. It’s not serious literature (and does not purport to be). It’s merely an entertaining murder mystery designed to divert the reader for a few leisurely hours. The plot and the whodunit elements are all that matter. Rhode’s prose style and characterisation are passable but essentially unremarkable. In that sense, this is a novel that is a sort of early literary equivalent of the current and successful British TV drama ‘Midsomer Murders’.
The story is set in London and its environs in the 1930s. The principal characters lead comfortable, middle-class lives in a world in which deference and rigid social order were the norm. There is little hint of the gradual post-war move to the more meritocratic society in which we now live. The plot itself - or the murder method, at least - is complex and highly improbable. It has the feel of one of those locked room ‘impossible’ mysteries for which John Dickson Carr was so famous (at the time John Rhode was writing). ‘Invisible Weapons’ is an entertaining trifle. 7/10.
The story is set in London and its environs in the 1930s. The principal characters lead comfortable, middle-class lives in a world in which deference and rigid social order were the norm. There is little hint of the gradual post-war move to the more meritocratic society in which we now live. The plot itself - or the murder method, at least - is complex and highly improbable. It has the feel of one of those locked room ‘impossible’ mysteries for which John Dickson Carr was so famous (at the time John Rhode was writing). ‘Invisible Weapons’ is an entertaining trifle. 7/10.
April 30, 2019
John Rhode is a master craftsman, but a bad novelist. The murder methods are very ingenious. But I doubt if the first method is very practical. I like it when the detective makes cryptic remarks which seem to have no no connection to the murders at all like dr. Priestly does here. The two murders also seemingly have no connection at all, but in the end it all adds up. This story is more a police procedural than a closed circle whodunit. Some chapters just ramble on and on without a logical break. And the last chapter is terrible. It is just a factual report of things that happened and it closes like a report in a newspaper on a crime and a criminal. There is no nice rounding off of everything.
July 15, 2019
This was disappointing.
My copy of this book has a quote from Francis Iles on the back cover. Iles was the author of Before the Fact which was the basis for the Alfred Hitchcock film Suspicion . (I admit I've never read the book or seen the movie, but I have heard one of the many radio adaptations and I greatly enjoyed it -though I think I would have liked the book ending better.) He was a founding member of the Detection Club. If he speaks well of somebody or one of their works then it must not be too bad right? Here is the quote (apparently from an article or review in the Daily Telegraph):
"John Rhode never lets you down. A carefully worked out plot, precise detection, with no logical flaws or jumping to conclusions, and enough of character and atmosphere to carry the thing along."
I don't know what book Iles was referring to or if he was just speaking in general, but I can tell you there is no earthly way he could have been talking about Invisible Weapons.
The police detectives in this book are some of the stupidest, most incompetent detectives I've ever seen in a mystery novel. Inspector Waghorn of Scotland Yard is somewhat smarter than his colleagues, but all of the policemen fall for what are some of the most obvious red herrings you'll ever read. (If the local guy with a history of nonviolent "episodes" says that
The fact that there could be a third (blindingly obvious) explanation that could mean never occurs to the police.)
You are forced to read page after page & chapter after chapter of the police rehashing the same theory. This is especially boring because there are no real characters here. Everyone is tissue paper thin. They have no lives, no hobbies, no idiosyncrasies. They have no real conversations, they simply mechanically parrot the same theory of the crime at each other even though they admit they have no way to prove that it is correct. It never occurs to them to look at the crime in any other way or look for any other suspects because they have no real interest in solving the crime. It's almost as if they know they are in a paint-by-numbers mystery and are just doing their part to pad out the pages.
The man who actually solves the mystery, Dr. Priestly, says and does nothing for most of the book. He's such a non-entity in Invisible Weapons that I was shocked to find that this book is #28 in a 72-book series featuring the doctor.
The mystery really isn't much of a mystery. I immediately guessed what the murder weapon was for the first murder but started second guessing myself when As for the killer of the first victim, The second death brings such obvious benefits to a certain person (and just in the nick of time too) that when the inquest decides it was just a terrible accident that needs nothing but the most superficial of investigations you start to think the detectives are too stupid to live.
As for the actual solution to the crime, well to say I have some problems with it would be an understatement.
What follows is the solution to the mystery so DO NOT READ it if you want to read the book unspoiled!
Seriously: MAJOR SPOILERS:
It's so outlandish. I could forgive it if it was at least entertainingly written. Unfortunately, it isn't.
My copy of this book has a quote from Francis Iles on the back cover. Iles was the author of Before the Fact which was the basis for the Alfred Hitchcock film Suspicion . (I admit I've never read the book or seen the movie, but I have heard one of the many radio adaptations and I greatly enjoyed it -though I think I would have liked the book ending better.) He was a founding member of the Detection Club. If he speaks well of somebody or one of their works then it must not be too bad right? Here is the quote (apparently from an article or review in the Daily Telegraph):
"John Rhode never lets you down. A carefully worked out plot, precise detection, with no logical flaws or jumping to conclusions, and enough of character and atmosphere to carry the thing along."
I don't know what book Iles was referring to or if he was just speaking in general, but I can tell you there is no earthly way he could have been talking about Invisible Weapons.
The police detectives in this book are some of the stupidest, most incompetent detectives I've ever seen in a mystery novel. Inspector Waghorn of Scotland Yard is somewhat smarter than his colleagues, but all of the policemen fall for what are some of the most obvious red herrings you'll ever read. (If the local guy with a history of nonviolent "episodes" says that
The fact that there could be a third (blindingly obvious) explanation that could mean never occurs to the police.)
You are forced to read page after page & chapter after chapter of the police rehashing the same theory. This is especially boring because there are no real characters here. Everyone is tissue paper thin. They have no lives, no hobbies, no idiosyncrasies. They have no real conversations, they simply mechanically parrot the same theory of the crime at each other even though they admit they have no way to prove that it is correct. It never occurs to them to look at the crime in any other way or look for any other suspects because they have no real interest in solving the crime. It's almost as if they know they are in a paint-by-numbers mystery and are just doing their part to pad out the pages.
The man who actually solves the mystery, Dr. Priestly, says and does nothing for most of the book. He's such a non-entity in Invisible Weapons that I was shocked to find that this book is #28 in a 72-book series featuring the doctor.
The mystery really isn't much of a mystery. I immediately guessed what the murder weapon was for the first murder but started second guessing myself when As for the killer of the first victim, The second death brings such obvious benefits to a certain person (and just in the nick of time too) that when the inquest decides it was just a terrible accident that needs nothing but the most superficial of investigations you start to think the detectives are too stupid to live.
As for the actual solution to the crime, well to say I have some problems with it would be an understatement.
What follows is the solution to the mystery so DO NOT READ it if you want to read the book unspoiled!
Seriously: MAJOR SPOILERS:
It's so outlandish. I could forgive it if it was at least entertainingly written. Unfortunately, it isn't.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 18, 2019
This was "Ho-hum" rather than humdrum. Rhode likes the device of two seemingly unconnected crimes which are in fact linked. The first murder has been described as "locked room"; while the cloakroom/lavatory door was locked, the window was open, so it is fairly obvious that the murder was committed via that route. The second murder was a curious mixture of ingeniousness and ineptitude, while the first seemed to rely for success on an unlikely combination of circumstances
Despite these carpings the story was quite enjoyable, if overelaborate, and there were some good red herring.
3.5 stars
Despite these carpings the story was quite enjoyable, if overelaborate, and there were some good red herring.
3.5 stars
April 3, 2019
I honestly enjoy a slow, methodical Golden Age mystery, but this one was just a tad too slow.
July 6, 2018
Published by Collins The Crime Club in April 1938. I will put the book taster from the first edition below.
Unlike the recent re-issue of Death at Breakfast this John Rhode book has been well selected and is one of his novels that has a good plot & storyline and where the characters are interesting, and his main investigators are not bickering at one another. In this novel which is in two parts - there is the first murder (almost a locked room mystery) where a rich uncle (what's new) is murdered in a downstairs washroom/cloakroom with the door locked and only a tiny iron grilled window partially open. No weapon is found in the cloakroom and a policeman is in a nearby room when the victim was murdered. What more could a puzzle solver want from a classical crime? Unfortunately for Inspector Jimmy Waghorn (new Hendon trained Inspector on the block) he isn't unable to solve the crime (nor can Chief Inspector Hanslet who goes over the case again) neither of them can show how the murder was committed. Part two - we have another rich older man (these are always in a plentiful supply in Rhode/Burton novels) - this time, just about to wed a younger woman but dies from noxious gases in the cellar before he can do so (poor sausage). Lucky for Inspector Waghorn & Chief Inspector Hanslet we have Doctor/Professor Priestley to the rescue - who helps them connect up all the dots and find out the answer to the original murder in part one - with rather heavy doses of luck thrown in to help them in their discoveries.
This novel is enjoyable to read and like all John Rhode/Miles Burton novels extremely easy on the brain - the author was extremely clever with murder devices and as long as he didn't get sidetracked he could write a decent crime novel - never anything exceptional but pleasurable and clever. This novel is a case in point - where Rhode gets it just right. If you haven't read Death at Breakfast I would definitely advise starting this novel first. I would give this book 8 out of 10.
Book taster taken from the first edition:
The murder of Mr. Robert Fransham while he was washing his hands at his niece's house was one of the most amazing problems that ever confronted ScotlandYard. Especially in view of the fact that no weapon could be found and that there was a policeman in the house when the murder was actually committed. The combined efforts of Superintendent Hanslet and Inspector Waghorn brought no result and the case was dropped - but not forgotten. It was only after another equally baffling murder (it was not known that this was a murder until later on) had been committed that Dr. Priestley began his investigations. He was as good as told that he had "a bee in his bonnet" but as the Doctor so aptly remarked, it was a bee which might produce the honey of wisdom. And it did, for Dr. Priestly's brilliant deductive powers eventually solved this extraordinary case.
Unlike the recent re-issue of Death at Breakfast this John Rhode book has been well selected and is one of his novels that has a good plot & storyline and where the characters are interesting, and his main investigators are not bickering at one another. In this novel which is in two parts - there is the first murder (almost a locked room mystery) where a rich uncle (what's new) is murdered in a downstairs washroom/cloakroom with the door locked and only a tiny iron grilled window partially open. No weapon is found in the cloakroom and a policeman is in a nearby room when the victim was murdered. What more could a puzzle solver want from a classical crime? Unfortunately for Inspector Jimmy Waghorn (new Hendon trained Inspector on the block) he isn't unable to solve the crime (nor can Chief Inspector Hanslet who goes over the case again) neither of them can show how the murder was committed. Part two - we have another rich older man (these are always in a plentiful supply in Rhode/Burton novels) - this time, just about to wed a younger woman but dies from noxious gases in the cellar before he can do so (poor sausage). Lucky for Inspector Waghorn & Chief Inspector Hanslet we have Doctor/Professor Priestley to the rescue - who helps them connect up all the dots and find out the answer to the original murder in part one - with rather heavy doses of luck thrown in to help them in their discoveries.
This novel is enjoyable to read and like all John Rhode/Miles Burton novels extremely easy on the brain - the author was extremely clever with murder devices and as long as he didn't get sidetracked he could write a decent crime novel - never anything exceptional but pleasurable and clever. This novel is a case in point - where Rhode gets it just right. If you haven't read Death at Breakfast I would definitely advise starting this novel first. I would give this book 8 out of 10.
Book taster taken from the first edition:
The murder of Mr. Robert Fransham while he was washing his hands at his niece's house was one of the most amazing problems that ever confronted ScotlandYard. Especially in view of the fact that no weapon could be found and that there was a policeman in the house when the murder was actually committed. The combined efforts of Superintendent Hanslet and Inspector Waghorn brought no result and the case was dropped - but not forgotten. It was only after another equally baffling murder (it was not known that this was a murder until later on) had been committed that Dr. Priestley began his investigations. He was as good as told that he had "a bee in his bonnet" but as the Doctor so aptly remarked, it was a bee which might produce the honey of wisdom. And it did, for Dr. Priestly's brilliant deductive powers eventually solved this extraordinary case.
September 22, 2020
First published in 1938 this is an early example of a locked room mystery and murder. As a mystery it was quite intriguing and it took me a while to work out. There was a suitable amount of deception to keep you guessing, but there were several “oh I get this bit” moments, which is unusual for me. Without going into details as to why the murder was committed when you do find out it really does appear extraordinarily far fetched - there must have been easier ways to get the desired outcome surely?
I wasn’t overly interested in the characters and I thought a weakness of the plot was the number of policemen who attempted to solve it before it was handed off to a Sherlock Holmes type character. They were all poorly described and the reader really didn’t get invited to explore them in depth. The date of publication - over 80 years ago - meant the plot did not age well. As soon as a particular technological advancement is mentioned the method of the murder becomes obvious to us in a way it probably wouldn’t have back in the 1930s. In summary, clever and convoluted, it hasn’t aged well. If you want to read books written in that period, Christie and Sayers are a much better bet.
I wasn’t overly interested in the characters and I thought a weakness of the plot was the number of policemen who attempted to solve it before it was handed off to a Sherlock Holmes type character. They were all poorly described and the reader really didn’t get invited to explore them in depth. The date of publication - over 80 years ago - meant the plot did not age well. As soon as a particular technological advancement is mentioned the method of the murder becomes obvious to us in a way it probably wouldn’t have back in the 1930s. In summary, clever and convoluted, it hasn’t aged well. If you want to read books written in that period, Christie and Sayers are a much better bet.
January 4, 2019
Superb ! Lucidly written,precise and logical fair play mystery with a couple of ingenious murder methods and a cunning murderer with as meticulous a plan as the Jackal in Forsyths book.
There is no logical gap as such,no extra padding such as various characters medical or domestic problems and only a single lucky chance .
This is no Christie book with half a dozen suspects and you won't be changing your culprit every chapter ,but that's not the point here.The two main points of interest here is how and why .Infact it's very difficult to think out a common factor to connect both the mysteries.So if you are just guessing the murderer,you would probably get it right at about 70% of the book,but it will be damned difficult to correctly deduce the method and motive.
Thoroughly captivating stuff.Very highly recommended indeed.The next one(Murder at Olympia) should reach me tomorrow... :)
There is no logical gap as such,no extra padding such as various characters medical or domestic problems and only a single lucky chance .
This is no Christie book with half a dozen suspects and you won't be changing your culprit every chapter ,but that's not the point here.The two main points of interest here is how and why .Infact it's very difficult to think out a common factor to connect both the mysteries.So if you are just guessing the murderer,you would probably get it right at about 70% of the book,but it will be damned difficult to correctly deduce the method and motive.
Thoroughly captivating stuff.Very highly recommended indeed.The next one(Murder at Olympia) should reach me tomorrow... :)
March 23, 2021
A locked room mystery in which reclusive Robert Fransham is found murdered in his bathroom of Dr Cyril Thornborough. Everybody is shocked that Fransham was to my his niece Betty and the finger points towards the doctor. Scotland Yard detectives Inspector Jimmy Waghorn and Superintendent Hanslet called in but are unable to find any evidence to support their theory. Meanwhile a second seemingly unconnected murder to Fransham’s neighbour Sir Godfrey Branstock from poison gas looks suspicious. At the point amateur sleuth Dr. Lancelot Priestley is asked to help to solve the case. "Invisible Weapons" is high calibre with a fiendishly clever solution which leaves even the most accomplished whodunit reader baffled.
April 16, 2018
A strong story well plotted I thought.
Both murder methods were relatively easy to see for readers with knowledge of the golden age murder mysteries. I was slightly disappointed in the rather obstinate local police (and jimmy waghorn who you think would be more open minded by this point in his career) in following only the single line of investigation without being more inventive in their theorising.
I know that goes against the ‘rules’ for golden age mysteries and the associated police officers but still..
Overall a good novel and mystery which also is a good introduction to this author for new readers
Both murder methods were relatively easy to see for readers with knowledge of the golden age murder mysteries. I was slightly disappointed in the rather obstinate local police (and jimmy waghorn who you think would be more open minded by this point in his career) in following only the single line of investigation without being more inventive in their theorising.
I know that goes against the ‘rules’ for golden age mysteries and the associated police officers but still..
Overall a good novel and mystery which also is a good introduction to this author for new readers
November 19, 2018
I have enjoyed all the John Rhode books that I have read so far. Looking forward to reading more. Recommend titles please!
April 18, 2019
Some nice twists.
July 24, 2023
A real oldfashioned puzzle mystery. I usually like these but this one contains to many details and the story is to elaborate to be enjoyable.
February 19, 2026
Great read
September 26, 2024
The killer going to such unusual lengths to meet their end goal was ridiculously far-fetched and the stereotypical befuddled police going over the case was a bit tedious, but it was an interesting "impossible crime" puzzle.
March 26, 2015
Great plotting like other writing of this period. I especially enjoyed the twists and turns.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews