The Dead Have No Friends

London: Home and Van Thal. Near Fine in Very Good- dj. 1952. First Edition. Hardcover. [slight bumping to upper tips, faint soiling to top edge of text block, spine just a bit turned; the jacket has tiny bits of paper loss at most corners and a bit more at the top of the spine, and is internally reinforced with clear tape along the top and bottom edges; in addition there is a long diagonal tear at the top of the front panel that has also been internally tape-repaired, and the printed price on the front flap has been crossed out and a lower price marked in ink]. The sixth and final mystery novel by this author under his "John Donavan" pseudonym (in this case misspelled as "Donovan" on the jacket), and an anomaly in that group: the other five had been written more than a decade earlier, and all had featured the character of Sgt. Johnny Lamb. (This was also the only one of the six that was never published in the U.S.) Here he introduced a new character, "Sir Benjamin Searle, ex-Commissioner of Metropolian Police, a ranting, roaring, lovable old party with a shrewd mind and a warm-hearted understanding of his fellow men." The book itself is described as "a 'locked room' mystery of epic proportions -- a murdered man in a glass case into which neither murderer nor weapon could possibly enter." The prolific author, who wrote under a number of other pseudonyms, was a one-time secretary to Edgar Wallace and a co-founder of the Crime Writers Association. All his "Donavan" books are quite scarce. .