The Cornish Coast Murder (eBook)
'Never, even in his most optimistic moments, had he visualised a scene of this nature —himself in one arm-chair, a police officer in another, and between them a mystery.'
The Reverend Dodd spends his evenings reading detective novels by the fire while serving as the vicar of the sleepy Cornish village of Boscawen. However, God forbid that any real crimes ever take place in his seaside parish.
The vicar's tranquility, however, is disturbed one stormy night when Julius Tregarthan, a reclusive and irritable magistrate, is discovered at his home in Boscawen with a bullet through his head.
The complete lack of leads perplexes the neighborhood police inspector. Fortunately for Inspector Bigswell, the Reverend Dodd is present and prepared to test his keen insight into the motivations of criminals.
A fishing village on Cornwall's Atlantic coast provides a vivid backdrop for this classic mystery from the height of British noir. It is now republished for the first time since the 1930s, with an introduction be award-winning crime writer Martin Edwards.
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About the Author
John Bude was the pen name of Ernest Carpenter Elmore, a prolific British crime writer born in Maidstone in 1901. Educated at Mill Hill School, he later attended a secretarial college in Cheltenham, learning skills that would support his early career as a games master and drama organiser at St Christopher School, Letchworth. His deep love for theatre led him to work as stage manager with the Lena Ashwell Players, touring productions across Britain and acting at Hampstead’s Everyman Theatre. Amid backstage life, he cultivated his writing craft, which blossomed into a full-time career.
In 1933, he married Betty, whom he met producing plays in Maidstone. Bude published around 30 crime novels, beginning with The Cornish Coast Murder (1935), and is best remembered for his engaging series featuring Superintendent Meredith and Inspector Sherwood. His final novels, A Twist of the Rope and The Night the Fog Came Down, appeared posthumously in 1958.
Beyond crime fiction, he wrote the fantasy The Lumpton Gobbelings (1954) and the children’s book The Snuffly Snorty Dog (1946). As a founder member of the Crime Writers’ Association in 1953, he championed crime writing until his death following a routine operation in 1957. Though never hailed among the genre’s giants, his stories remain admired for their smooth, entertaining style.