Press of Suspects

When the Foreign Editor of London’s Morning Call newspaper resigns, his assistant Edgar Jessop seems, at least to himself, the obvious choice to replace him. Particularly as he has been passed over for promotion on so many occasions in the past.

Jessop is, therefore, outraged to learn that one of the young, upstart reporters, Cardew, is to be awarded the position, and Jessop is to be shipped off to Malaya to report on the recent disturbances: a seeming punishment for all his years of hard work.

Driven to despair, Jessop hatches a plan to take revenge on the staff at the Morning Call. When one of the journalists is poisoned, the whole press-team become suspects to murder. For no one would suspect shy, retiring Jessop of this heinous crime, would they? It is up to Chief Inspector Haines to investigate . . .

Andrew Garve is the pen name of Paul Winterton (1908-2001). He was born in Leicester and educated at the Hulme Grammar School, Manchester and Purley County School, Surrey, after which he took a degree in Economics at London University. He was on the staff of The Economist for four years, and then worked for fourteen years for the London News Chronicle as reporter, leader writer and foreign correspondent. He was assigned to Moscow from 1942 to 1945, where he was also the correspondent of the BBC’s Overseas Service.

After the war he turned to full-time writing of detective and adventure novels and produced more than forty-five books. His work was serialized, televised, broadcast, filmed and translated into some twenty languages. He is noted for his varied and unusual backgrounds – which have included Russia, newspaper offices, the West Indies, ocean sailing, the Australian outback, politics, mountaineering and forestry – and for never repeating a plot.

Andrew Garve was a founder member and first joint secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association.