Clifford Witting Livres

A fascinating collection of hundreds of English proverbs still in current use, tracing their origins, explaining their meaning, and commenting on their interpretation. The authors are concerned with proverbs as a living force in the development of the language, selecting sayings that are simultaneously pithy, witty and wise. Teachers and students of English will find English Proverbs Explained as useful as will the crossword addict and the general reader. - First published 1967 - Reprinted 1968, 1974

Detective-Sergeant Martin christened him 'Whiskers', but nobody could be certain who he really was. That was not the only question that confronted Inspector Charlton of the C.I.D. How, for instance, did young Courtenay Harbord die? And why? Who was Number 106 and in what way did Mr. Ninian McCullough upset the apple-cart? The fourth Duke of Redbourn had built Etchworth Tower on the summit of High Down in 1782 and it was at the foot of it that they found Harbord one autumn morning, falsebearded and with a broken neck. It looked, on the face of it, a simple case of suicide, but was it? A delicately-handled love affair adds piquancy to the complicated, but never tedious, investigation; Sergeant Bert Martin is always there with his pungent Cockney wit; and from the moment when old Tom Lee says, 'Well I'll be danged!' the tale goes steadily forward to its exciting climax.

The scene is The Blue Boar in the High Street, Lulverton. The the stag party planned to celebrate Sergeant Bert Martin’s retirement after thirty years’ service.“It was good while it lasted,” said Bert, putting down his empty tankard with a reflective sigh. “Bein’ in the Force, I mean. Lookin’ back over the long vista of the years…” But Bert had still until midnight before Bradfield was due to step into his shoes.At nine twenty-five Jimmy Hooker was still very much alive, if a little the worse for wear, when he barged in on the party in the upstairs room. At closing time he was dead in the saloon. “And I don’t think,” said ‘Pop’ Collins, licensee of the Blue Boar, “that it was in the way of nature.”

Detective Inspector Harry Charlton finds himself invited to a reunion at Mereworth School at which a particularly unpleasant, but very famous and accomplished old boy, Colonel Bernard Garstang -VC, DSO and MC, .. aka 'Rhino' will be present. The Colonel is attending this event in order to persuade his daughter Diana and his ex-wife Muriel that Diana should accompany him to live in Port Douglas, Nigeria. He is both inebriated and armed..... But also there is Gordon Hollander, who is much enamoured of Diana, and is far from keen on allowing her to be taken off anywhere. Gordon's father, Sir James, also doesn't want Rhino in the family given what he knows about him from school days....and Mark Longdon seems to have an excess of secrets that Rhino is willing to divulge. So, as the title suggests, it doesn't look good for the Colonel. Witting has woven these relationships into a hilarious fabric that wraps around the reunion, the centrepiece of which is the cricket match between Mereworth 1st XI and the Old Merrovians XI. While it is quite apparent that many people wanted Rhino dead, it is not at all apparent whom it was that finished him off. The author is at his best in creating a cast of extremely colourful characters while adhering to a gripping tale of detection. Clifford Witting's writing is drawing in more fans as each reissue comes out and this book will certainly not disappoint.

Let X be the Murderer was published in 1947.It is a bleak November morning when Sergeant Martin, Inspector Charlton’s stalwart sidekick, receives an agitated phone call from Sir Victor Wallingham claiming that a ghost attempted to strangle him in the night. When Inspector Charlton follows this up, he is blocked at every turn, but even so, when the following night does actually end with the discovery of a body, he is not expecting it."It is confidently predicted that the denouement to this exciting and tautly written tale will cause the reader as great, if not so painful, a surprise..." -Classiccrimefiction.com

'John Rutherford, bookseller and sometime novelist, discovers the bludgeoned corpse of a policeman one evening while taking a stroll in a rainstorm. the overturned bicycle is what first catches Rutherford's eye before spotting PC Johnson's body sprawled on the sodden ground of Phantom Coppice. When Inspector Charlton is called in to find the murderer, he realises that the perpetrator of this crime may be prepared to go to extreme lengths to cover their tracks...' - cover

How, where and why did a man disappear from a group of carol singers on that cold December night in Paulsfield? It hardly seemed likely that he had absconded with the collection box. But the more Inspector Charlton found out about the missing person, the less certain he became he would find him alive...

Witting's second Inspector Charlton mystery, first published in 1937, is set in Paulsfield (clearly a fictional Petersfield in Hampshire). It is a market day and there is much noise and bustle. A bull decides it is time to liberate itself and goes on the rampage. As this is happening, a cleaner working on the statue in the middle of the square is shot dead, straight through the head. Inspector Charlton has very few leads on this case. There is no obvious motive for the cleaner's death, and when two further murders are committed within the same day, both taking place in the market square, the mystery has obviously deepened exponentially. Midsummer Murder is another Clifford Witting that will delight all his fans.