The Methods of Sergeant Cluff (British Library Crime Classics) - Softcover

Gil North

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0712356479 ISBN 13: 9780712356473

Publisher: The British Library Publishing Division, 2016

Synopsis

After battling for justice, at great personal risk, in his first recorded case, Sergeant Caleb Cluff made a swift return to duty in this book. The story opens one wet and windy night, with the discovery of a young woman's corpse, lying face down on the cobblestones of a passageway in the Yorkshire town of Gunnarshaw. The deceased is Jane Trundle, an attractive girl who worked as an assistant in a chemist's shop. She yearned for the good life, and Cluff finds more money in her handbag than she would have earned in wages.There are echoes of Sherlock Holmes ('You know my methods, Watson') in the title, and in an exchange in the first chapter between Cluff and Superintendent Patterson, but Cluff is very much his own man. Little that goes on in and around the mean streets of Gunnarshaw escapes him. He is scornful of detectives who rely solely on supposed facts: 'More than facts were in question here, the intangible, invisible passions of human beings.' Understanding those passions leads him gradually towards the truth about Jane's murder.

About this title

About the Author

GIL NORTH was the pseudonym of Geoffrey Horne (1916-1988), a writer from Skipton who worked as a civil servant in colonial Africa for many years, before returning to his native Yorkshire. The best-known of his novels are the eleven detective stories featuring Sergeant Cluff.

Edition details

• Publisher: The British Library Publishing Division
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0712356479
• ISBN 13: 9780712356473
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 176