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Rating: 
Summary: A classic murder mystery from the 1930s.
Review: A company manufacturing rapid hardening cement faces bankruptcy. A rival company, based on the Isle of Wight, seems to have a better product and to be monopolizing the market. An attempt to discover the rival company's secret formula miscarries when a night watchman is accidentally killed. The secret is discovered, but attempts to utilize it and to fake the cause of the night watchman's death seem to bring more problems than the initial threat of bankruptcy. This is the situation that Crofts creates in the early part of this superb novel, and which he sets his Chief Detective French to detect. All the writer's best attributes are displayed here: meticulous plot construction, the time-tabling and checking of alibis, the familiarity with chemical processes, and the fine descriptions of locations on and around the Isle of Wight. What is not here is the "love interest" that Crofts usually felt obliged to incorporate into his novels. This one is pure detective fiction. Most of the tricks used by mystery writers of the time are here. There's an additional one that is new to me. It involves substituting sugar bowls in the dining car of a train in order to obtain a set of keys. This 1934 mystery is certainly one of this author's best. Every page seems to crackle with the excitement generated by the committing and uncovering of crimes.
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