Golden Age of Detective Fiction

Thurza Drake, a young, naive box office worker, is slowly drawn into a counterfeiting scheme after being approached by another woman on her bus route asking if she would like to make some extra money gambling.

In the beginning, Drake is making money hand over fist, until she starts losing and losing badly. She owes the gambling syndicate 10 pounds, but they will look the other way if she cooperates with them. All she has to do is put low-denomination silver coins in one bag every night after her shift and substitute them for other silver coins.

The coins look identical, and Drake isn’t even sure they are counterfeit, so she agrees and is swept up with a gaggle of other box office girls doing the same swindle. Drake doesn’t like being a part of the scam, but it’s not hurting anybody.

Until one of her fellow box office girls is found dead, strangled, and drowned horribly. Now Drake is afraid, terribly afraid, and contacts Inspector French. When she fails to turn up at their appointed meet-up time, French is worried that he will find her dead next.

Who is behind this counterfeiting operation, how are they changing the money, why are they changing such insignificant amounts of money- no profit can be made this way- why use box office girls to change the coins, and where is Thurza Drake are all questions that Inspector French needs to answer and soon before Thurza Drake is found dead.

The Review

This is my fifth Inspector French novel, and just when I think I have the well-trodden formula of Freeman Wills Crofts, ponderous stories under my belt throw a curve ball at me. This story has no all-encompassing timeline, meandering journeys to far-flung locales, or even Croft’s penchant for repeating the clues repeatedly, adding another 50 pages to an already lengthy book.

Murders at the Box Office is an excellent and tight police procedural. We see French work with other Inspectors, his subordinates, stool pigeons, and all the resources money and police influence can buy.

Inspector French, a mild-mannered husband and long-suffering policeman, gets a bit of a gritty edge in this book. He breaks into people’s property several times and creates a hilarious alter ego, complete with a small child he bribes to create mayhem and distractions. He’s rascally on stakeouts and is generally a little angry this time. Losing Thurza Drake is personal to him, and he genuinely, despite catching this band of criminals, cannot figure out how or why they are pulling this elaborate silver coin-swapping scheme.

This book is maddening, and I was right there with French, spending time I was not reading the book actively trying to work out this case. It literally drove me bonkers, and I think my husband was glad when I finished it because I would not stop talking theories to him about a book he’d never read. I loved it. It’s a great puzzle, one of Croft’s best, and so deceptively simple that I was mad that I couldn’t figure it out until French did.

I liked this more frantic Inspector French, who is working under pressure. His fear that something unspeakable happened or is happening to Thurza Drake was palpable. The more graphic and grisly (for the period) description of what happened to the previous victim really ramped the suspense up to eleven.

Also, the closed, almost claustrophobic chasing of clues and suspects around the streets of London made me feel like we could run into the killer, who is as mild-mannered in his disguise as milk, which really worked for me. Spoiler: we do!

I know Freeman Wills Crofts is known for his adherence to timetables and running French all over Europe until the reader is blue in the face, but I really liked this tighter-written and more enclosed mystery. The stakes and emotions were much closer to the surface, and it really revitalized the hangdog impression I had of French.

I don’t think Freeman Wills Crofts needs all of these little crutches he is known for—he can write a better mystery without them, and Inspector French and the Box Office Murders is proof.

Freeman Wills Crofts Book Reviews

Inspector French #1: Inspector French’s Greatest Case (1924)

Inspector French #7: Mystery in the Channel (1931)

Inspector French #10: The Hog’s Back Mystery (1933)

Inspector French #17: Antidote to Venom (1938)

Freeman Wills Crofts Biography

Freeman Wills Crofts (1879–1957) was an Irish author, best known for his detective fiction. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, on June 1, 1879, and spent much of his early life there. He initially pursued a career in engineering, working for various railway companies, including the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway and later the Midland Railway in England.

Crofts began writing detective fiction in his spare time while working as an engineer. His breakthrough came with the publication of his first novel, “The Cask” (1920), which introduced his series detective, Inspector Joseph French of Scotland Yard. Crofts was known for his meticulous attention to detail and for incorporating his engineering background into his plots, often focusing on alibis, timetables, and other technical aspects of crime investigation.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Crofts produced a prolific body of work, including many successful novels such as “The Ponson Case” (1921), “The Pit-Prop Syndicate” (1922), and “The 12:30 from Croydon” (1934). His novels were characterized by their intricate plots, reliance on logic and deduction, and a focus on the procedural aspects of police work.

While Crofts never achieved the same level of fame as some of his contemporaries such as Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers, he was highly respected within the genre and is often cited as one of the founding figures of the “Golden Age” of detective fiction.

In addition to his writing, Crofts remained active in the engineering profession throughout his life, eventually rising to the position of Chief Mechanical Engineer for the Northern Counties Committee in Ireland. He retired from engineering in 1929 to focus on his writing full-time.

Crofts’ works continued to be popular among fans of classic detective fiction, and many of his novels have been reprinted and adapted for television and radio over the years. He passed away on April 11, 1957, leaving behind a legacy of influential and meticulously plotted detective stories.