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Inspector French #9
Death on the Way
Work on the widening of the Southern Railway's south coast route results in two mysterious deaths. Murder becomes apparent. As evidence is sifted through and minute detail and data analysed, tension mounts right up to the dramatic climax in this gripping thriller from one of Britain's greatest crime authors.
The book is also known as 'Double Death'.
The book is also known as 'Double Death'.
- GenresMystery
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1932
About the author
Freeman Wills Crofts
136 books91 followersBorn in Dublin of English stock, Freeman Wills Crofts was educated at Methodist and Campbell Colleges in Belfast and at age 17 he became a civil engineering pupil, apprenticed to his uncle, Berkeley D Wise who was the chief engineer of the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway (BNCR).
In 1899 he became a fully fledged railway engineer before becoming a district engineer and then chief assistant engineer for the BNCR.
He married in 1912, Mary Bellas Canning, a bank manager's daughter. His writing career began when he was recovering from a serious illness and his efforts were rewarded when his first novel 'The Cask' was accepted for publication by a London publishing house. Within two decades the book had sold 100,000 copies. Thereafter he continued to write in his spare time and produced a book a year through to 1929 when he was obliged to stop working through poor health.
When he and his wife moved to Guildford, England, he took up writing full time and not surprisingly many of his plots revolved around travel and transport, particularly transport timetables and many of them had a Guildford setting.
In retirement from engineering, as well as writing, he also pursued his other interests, music, in which he was an organist and conductor, gardening, carpentry and travel.
He wrote a mystery novel almost every year until his death and in addition he produced about 50 short stories, 30 radio plays for the BBC, a number of true crime works, a play, 'Sudden Death', a juvenile mystery, 'Young Robin Brand, Detective', and a religious work, 'The Four Gospels in One Story'.
His best known character is Inspector Joseph French, who featured in 30 detective novels between 1924 and 1957. And Raymond Chandler praised his plots, calling him "the soundest builder of them all".
Gerry Wolstenholme
May 2010
In 1899 he became a fully fledged railway engineer before becoming a district engineer and then chief assistant engineer for the BNCR.
He married in 1912, Mary Bellas Canning, a bank manager's daughter. His writing career began when he was recovering from a serious illness and his efforts were rewarded when his first novel 'The Cask' was accepted for publication by a London publishing house. Within two decades the book had sold 100,000 copies. Thereafter he continued to write in his spare time and produced a book a year through to 1929 when he was obliged to stop working through poor health.
When he and his wife moved to Guildford, England, he took up writing full time and not surprisingly many of his plots revolved around travel and transport, particularly transport timetables and many of them had a Guildford setting.
In retirement from engineering, as well as writing, he also pursued his other interests, music, in which he was an organist and conductor, gardening, carpentry and travel.
He wrote a mystery novel almost every year until his death and in addition he produced about 50 short stories, 30 radio plays for the BBC, a number of true crime works, a play, 'Sudden Death', a juvenile mystery, 'Young Robin Brand, Detective', and a religious work, 'The Four Gospels in One Story'.
His best known character is Inspector Joseph French, who featured in 30 detective novels between 1924 and 1957. And Raymond Chandler praised his plots, calling him "the soundest builder of them all".
Gerry Wolstenholme
May 2010
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 25, 2021
After the relative dissapointment of Crime at Guildford , this was a thoroughly satisfactory Crofts . The setting is interesting as it gave me a glimpse at railroad work and for me it was fascinating to check up on all the meters(pulsometer,comptometer,cyclometer etc.) and 0-4-4 ,2-6-0,0-8-0 etc .The mystery was complex as usual and again Crofts has tried something new (for him) and it is very successful because of if being unexpected .
The detection and logical reasoning was excellent and the clues were all very expertly hidden. You can solve the case if you take mental note of them and dont let your brain get clouded by conventional ideas .
The book became thoroughly engrossing and downright exiting towards the end .
Solid entry in the series ...4.1 stars .
The detection and logical reasoning was excellent and the clues were all very expertly hidden. You can solve the case if you take mental note of them and dont let your brain get clouded by conventional ideas .
The book became thoroughly engrossing and downright exiting towards the end .
Solid entry in the series ...4.1 stars .
March 21, 2026
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
As much as I like Inspector French (and I do) I see why he's the despair of local CID officers and Chief Constables everywhere he goes. As Scotland Yard's Shining Light, his job is to investigate murders. So if anyone has died, under any circumstances whatever, you can bet good money "Soapy Joe" French will discover it's a murder.
This is particularly inconvenient when the local coroner's jury has declared that Mr Smith died accidentally and Mr Jones committed suicide. After condolences have been tendered to the families and the stiff has been buried, along comes Inspector French and both corpses have to be dug up and checked for suspicious bumps or poison in their systems. Life's hard enough for the police without this kind of thing.
It's said the "perfect murder" is one which the killer has cleverly arranged to look like a suicide or an accident. If the cops don't know a murder has been committed, the guilty party doesn't have to worry about being fingered for the job.
I'm giving this one three stars instead of my usual four stars for an Inspector French mystery. It's not that the good inspector isn't in fine form. He is. But it's all about a railroad engineering job and my interest in engineering jobs of any sort is minimal.
Crofts, on the other hand, was a civil engineer employed by a railroad company before he became ill. During his enforced idleness, he wrote a mystery and became a successful writer of who-dun-its. So he knew all there is to know about RR engineering projects and what can go wrong with them.
In this case, French finds evidence that plans may have been altered so the company providing coolie labor for the RR could charge for work they didn't do. Must be the company officers, who'd be the only ones to profit by the "mistake."
BUT their head engineer received a bonus when profits rose over a certain level. So he had reason to cook the books. Was he working alone or did one of the RR engineers help him?
First up is Clifford Parry, who's had a difficult life. He was gassed in WWI after going into debt to finance his engineering studies. Once he finished school, England was in the grip of an economic depression and jobs were hard to find. He experienced dire poverty until a friend of his parents offered him a job as a junior engineer on their current project, which is to widen (add tracks to) the lines between two coastal towns that have become popular resorts.
The author's sympathy for Parry's suffering is a reminder that Crofts himself came from humble beginnings. He'd barely started on his career when a serious illness put him out of commission and unable to compete for the few jobs available. His story-telling ability saved him, but he must have looked at men like Clifford Parry with a feeling of "there but for the grace of God go I."
The young engineers involved in the project seem to get along well, although two board at the same private hotel and both are in love with the beautiful daughter of the owner. It wasn't a friendly "may the best man win" sort of competition, either. The two men argued fiercely and threatened to kill each other. That's remembered when one of them dies.
The first death involves a young engineer whose father is a successful local professional. With a loving, well-heeled family behind him, Ronnie Ackerley's life has been easier than his colleagues. Still, he's a hard worker and a likable man who appears to have no enemies and no reason to seek death. He dies when he falls in front of a train and is crushed to death.
It looks like an accident until a local man reports seeing a stranger near the site of the death. Scotland Yard is called in and French starts looking for the stranger. He's far from convinced that an experienced railroad man like Ackerley would risk falling in front of a moving train when there were other paths nearby. Sure enough, the popular engineer was boffed on the head and left on the tracks to die. Who could have done it?
Then French discovers the alledged fraud and starts working on that. Soon there's another death and this one is put down to suicide. If you'd been involved in an illegal scheme and were in danger of arrest, you might take the easy way out, especially if you were suspected of murder, too.
But there are problems with the suicide theory also. French has to decided if the motive for murder was financial or for safety or if a young man desperately in love would resort to killing his rival.
Although the details of the engineering project went over my head, I enjoyed watching the meticulous Inspector French go about tracing bicycle sales, suspects' financial records, and even the typewriter that produced two notes possibly used by the murderer to provide an alibi for himself and leave another man with no chance of proving his innocence.
Today, police investigators can't compare worn or broken letters on a typewriter to get clues. But in the 1930's police didn't have cell phone towers to conveniently record "pings" and show the location of various suspects when the murder was taking place. Things change, but a good detective uses current technology to narrow down his search. It's a process of slowly eliminating suspects. The one who can't be eliminated is probably the murderer.
If you don't mind a lot of railroad talk, it's an entertaining detective story. The suspects are all young men, so they're competing for the best jobs AND the most desirable females. Inspector French keeps gathering evidence until he can zero in on the guilty man. I like police procedurals and Crofts wrote good ones.
As much as I like Inspector French (and I do) I see why he's the despair of local CID officers and Chief Constables everywhere he goes. As Scotland Yard's Shining Light, his job is to investigate murders. So if anyone has died, under any circumstances whatever, you can bet good money "Soapy Joe" French will discover it's a murder.
This is particularly inconvenient when the local coroner's jury has declared that Mr Smith died accidentally and Mr Jones committed suicide. After condolences have been tendered to the families and the stiff has been buried, along comes Inspector French and both corpses have to be dug up and checked for suspicious bumps or poison in their systems. Life's hard enough for the police without this kind of thing.
It's said the "perfect murder" is one which the killer has cleverly arranged to look like a suicide or an accident. If the cops don't know a murder has been committed, the guilty party doesn't have to worry about being fingered for the job.
I'm giving this one three stars instead of my usual four stars for an Inspector French mystery. It's not that the good inspector isn't in fine form. He is. But it's all about a railroad engineering job and my interest in engineering jobs of any sort is minimal.
Crofts, on the other hand, was a civil engineer employed by a railroad company before he became ill. During his enforced idleness, he wrote a mystery and became a successful writer of who-dun-its. So he knew all there is to know about RR engineering projects and what can go wrong with them.
In this case, French finds evidence that plans may have been altered so the company providing coolie labor for the RR could charge for work they didn't do. Must be the company officers, who'd be the only ones to profit by the "mistake."
BUT their head engineer received a bonus when profits rose over a certain level. So he had reason to cook the books. Was he working alone or did one of the RR engineers help him?
First up is Clifford Parry, who's had a difficult life. He was gassed in WWI after going into debt to finance his engineering studies. Once he finished school, England was in the grip of an economic depression and jobs were hard to find. He experienced dire poverty until a friend of his parents offered him a job as a junior engineer on their current project, which is to widen (add tracks to) the lines between two coastal towns that have become popular resorts.
The author's sympathy for Parry's suffering is a reminder that Crofts himself came from humble beginnings. He'd barely started on his career when a serious illness put him out of commission and unable to compete for the few jobs available. His story-telling ability saved him, but he must have looked at men like Clifford Parry with a feeling of "there but for the grace of God go I."
The young engineers involved in the project seem to get along well, although two board at the same private hotel and both are in love with the beautiful daughter of the owner. It wasn't a friendly "may the best man win" sort of competition, either. The two men argued fiercely and threatened to kill each other. That's remembered when one of them dies.
The first death involves a young engineer whose father is a successful local professional. With a loving, well-heeled family behind him, Ronnie Ackerley's life has been easier than his colleagues. Still, he's a hard worker and a likable man who appears to have no enemies and no reason to seek death. He dies when he falls in front of a train and is crushed to death.
It looks like an accident until a local man reports seeing a stranger near the site of the death. Scotland Yard is called in and French starts looking for the stranger. He's far from convinced that an experienced railroad man like Ackerley would risk falling in front of a moving train when there were other paths nearby. Sure enough, the popular engineer was boffed on the head and left on the tracks to die. Who could have done it?
Then French discovers the alledged fraud and starts working on that. Soon there's another death and this one is put down to suicide. If you'd been involved in an illegal scheme and were in danger of arrest, you might take the easy way out, especially if you were suspected of murder, too.
But there are problems with the suicide theory also. French has to decided if the motive for murder was financial or for safety or if a young man desperately in love would resort to killing his rival.
Although the details of the engineering project went over my head, I enjoyed watching the meticulous Inspector French go about tracing bicycle sales, suspects' financial records, and even the typewriter that produced two notes possibly used by the murderer to provide an alibi for himself and leave another man with no chance of proving his innocence.
Today, police investigators can't compare worn or broken letters on a typewriter to get clues. But in the 1930's police didn't have cell phone towers to conveniently record "pings" and show the location of various suspects when the murder was taking place. Things change, but a good detective uses current technology to narrow down his search. It's a process of slowly eliminating suspects. The one who can't be eliminated is probably the murderer.
If you don't mind a lot of railroad talk, it's an entertaining detective story. The suspects are all young men, so they're competing for the best jobs AND the most desirable females. Inspector French keeps gathering evidence until he can zero in on the guilty man. I like police procedurals and Crofts wrote good ones.
October 18, 2025
Four and a half stars.
I really enjoyed this book having just read it again after many years. An excellent police procedural. I know that some readers would find the mass of detail tedious but I don't.
The story is set on The Railway and obviously draws on FWC's own experience as a railway engineer. A section of the railway is being widened, involving massive earthworks and the like. One of the engineers is found on the line having been run over by a train. Was it accident, suicide or murder? The inquest decided it was an accident but subsequent evidence threw doubt on this verdict and Inspector French was called in to Investigate.
Highly recommended
I really enjoyed this book having just read it again after many years. An excellent police procedural. I know that some readers would find the mass of detail tedious but I don't.
The story is set on The Railway and obviously draws on FWC's own experience as a railway engineer. A section of the railway is being widened, involving massive earthworks and the like. One of the engineers is found on the line having been run over by a train. Was it accident, suicide or murder? The inquest decided it was an accident but subsequent evidence threw doubt on this verdict and Inspector French was called in to Investigate.
Highly recommended
July 26, 2021
Definitely not one of his better books. There is excruciating detail at the beginning about the railway and contractor crews. You would need a complex organizational chart to try and figure it all out. Then many of the facts are checked by Inspector French in minute-by-minute detail. The solution is quite intriguing but the book itself is a real slog.
November 5, 2020
Crofts obviously drew on his own experiences as a civil engineer on the railways for the setting of this 1932 investigation by Inspector French which begins with a body found on a railway line near to a line-widening project.
There are plenty of alibis to be checked here by the painstaking detective, and there is a further death before the solution is found.
I thought this one sagged a bit or, rather, got mired in the detail of the excavations, and was not quite as interesting as its predecessor, "Sudden Death". However, it is heaven for the lover of vintage police procedurals.
Recommendable, despite my cavils.
There are plenty of alibis to be checked here by the painstaking detective, and there is a further death before the solution is found.
I thought this one sagged a bit or, rather, got mired in the detail of the excavations, and was not quite as interesting as its predecessor, "Sudden Death". However, it is heaven for the lover of vintage police procedurals.
Recommendable, despite my cavils.
April 11, 2021
1930s procedural mystery . Compared to Agatha Christie.
Very detailed. Learned about the intricacies of building train tresses and the widening of train tracks . Two murders. Huge fraud on the companies involved. The characters very stiff and seemed non important . The plot weaved but was interesting .
Not an Agatha Christie!
Very detailed. Learned about the intricacies of building train tresses and the widening of train tracks . Two murders. Huge fraud on the companies involved. The characters very stiff and seemed non important . The plot weaved but was interesting .
Not an Agatha Christie!
June 14, 2021
This was my fifth book by this author and it was without a doubt the worst. So. Very. Repetitive. French comes and then vanishes for most of the book. It didn't feel like this is an inspector French book. So very disappointed
August 3, 2020
The story was very boring
February 8, 2023
Another intriguing Crofts thriller
A cleverly contrived plot by a master author. Freeman Wills Crofts was a star of the golden age of detective mystery’s.
A cleverly contrived plot by a master author. Freeman Wills Crofts was a star of the golden age of detective mystery’s.
September 28, 2024
The author got too caught up in making a elaborate plot
May 25, 2025
I don’t want to spoil the read, but for me the solution left a strangely unpleasant aftertaste. Read it, enjoy it (there’s much to enjoy) and don’t mind me.
September 15, 2016
While I did have a sneaking suspicion about the murderer's identity, the engineering details that were so important to the plot went right over my head. The young resident engineer on a project to expand a rail line is found dead on the tracks--an obvious accident. But facts come to light that send Inspector French of Scotland Yard to decide if it was a case of murder. The investigation is lengthy, to say the least, and one more crime is discovered. Inspector French doesn't work as closely with the local police in this mystery as he usually does.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews