Murder in Blue

- Blurb -

John Rutherford, bookseller and sometime fiction writer, discovers the bludgeoned corpse of a policeman one evening while taking a stroll in a rainstorm. The policeman' s overturned bicycle is what first catches Rutherford' s eye. Then he sees Officer Johnson' s body sprawled on the sodden ground of Phantom Coppice. Rutherford takes Johnson' s bike and pedals to rural Paulsfield police station, two miles away, to report the crime. There he finds Sgt. Martin who initiates calls to a doctor, a photographer and Inspector Charlton. But it is not these two lead detectives who are the most interesting characters of the book. That honour goes to 19 year-old George Stubbings, assistant at Voslivres, the bookshop Rutherford owns. George is a detective story addict and he is keen on solving the various mysteries surrounding Johnson' s violent death. He is both ingenuous in dealing with Rutherford and ingenious in his precocious observations about the apparent murder. Murder in Blue is the second of Galileo' s Clifford Witting' s re-issued classic detective thrillers. The first, Catt Out of the Bag, was enthusiastically received by fans of the genre in late 2020. Clifford Witting (1907-68) was an English writer who was educated at Eltham College, London, between 1916 and 1924. During World War II he served as a bombardier in the Royal Artillery, 1942-44, and as a Warrant Officer in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, 1944-46. He married Ellen Marjorie Steward in 1934 and they had one daughter. Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked as a clerk in Lloyds bank from 1924 to 1942. He was Honorary Editor of The Old Elthamian magazine, London. from 1947 up to his death.