The Twenty-One Clues

Sir Clinton Driffield #14

by J.J. Connington

The Constable was content to call it a suicide pact. All the evidence was there. The bodies of John Barratt and Mrs Callis were discovered in a lovers' nook among some bracken. Beside them was a pistol with Barratt's fingerprints on it, and torn up letters in the handwriting of Barratt and Mrs Callis were scattered around. Arrangements for the elopement had apparently been complete. Why had their plans fallen through? Why had they turned their backs on the railway station with tickets to London in their pockets? Sir Clinton Driffield is not so sure that the obvious solution is the right one ...

Genres: Mystery

310 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1941

About the author

Pseudonym of Alfred Walter Stewart.

Reviews

[Damaskcat · Rating 5 out of 5]

It seems like a suicide pact when the bodies of the Rev John Barratt and Mrs Challis were found on a railway embankment but Sir Clinton Driffield has some doubts about the case. The evidence doesn't quite match up with what you might expect to find. It seemed as though they had planned to elope but then their plans had fallen through.

I really enjoyed this well written mystery. It is fascinating to watch the clues being pieced together in such a painstaking way to produce a very different picture from that presented by the bodies. I did think I knew who had done it quite early on but there were enough twists before the end to show me that I hadn't worked out the whole picture.

This book and this series are well worth reading if you enjoy Golden Age crime fiction. The books in the series can be read in any order.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was almost like an inverted mystery for me as I felt that the perpetrators were very obvious from an even earlier stage than usual in Connington. All the interest, then, was in the gathering and interpretation of the evidence-the 21 clues of the title.

I thought that the plot was somewhat laboured and there was rather a lot of ballistics to be interpreted. The characterisation, apart from the murder victims, was fairly perfunctory and the writing quite pedestrian.

Not one of the better late entries in the series.

3.5 stars.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I’m reading more J.J. Connington books, I’m learning the right way to read them. The murders and coverups are very complex but he’s not super great with misdirection the way Agatha Christie is, so the murderer is often obvious to the reader pretty early on, especially if you’re well versed in detective fiction. The enjoyment is more in the intricately designed plotting of the murder itself, so it’s helpful to pay attention to details that I’m tempted to skim past.