Crofts

FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS (1879 - 1957)

Crofts was commonly regarded as one of the big four of the golden age of detective fiction, along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and R. Austin Freeman. Although his style is pedestrian and too fond of alibis depending on railway timetables (he was a railway man himself) some of his plotting is ingenious. He was obviously familiar with Newcastle, as he sets a section of his Groote Park Murder (1924) in and around the city. His detective arrives at Central Station, stays at the Metropole Hotel, and uses Clayton photographic studio as a cover for his activities. There is a deal of driving to and fro, involving Langholm Hill, a country house near Newcastle, and some scrutiny of rail schedules, but Crofts had no eye for architecture in this novel and we gain no impression of the city or its everyday life.

In another book Sir John Magill’s Last Journey, one of the conspirators stays on the night before the crime at the Turk’s Head hotel (unnamed) in Grey Street, Newcastle, before travelling on to castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway. Naturally there is a bit about the timetable of his motor-car journey!

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS (1879 - 1957) Crofts was commonly regarded as one of the big four of the golden age of detective fiction, along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and R. Austin Freeman. Although his style is pedestrian and too fond of alibis depending on railway timetables (he was a railway man himself) some of his plotting is ingenious. He was obviously familiar with Newcastle, as he sets a section of his Groote Park Murder (1924) in and around the city. His detective arrives at Central Station, stays at the Metropole Hotel, and uses Clayton photographic studio as a cover for his activities. There is a deal of driving to and fro, involving Langholm Hill, a country house near Newcastle, and some scrutiny of rail schedules, but Crofts had no eye for architecture in this novel and we gain no impression of the city or its everyday life. In another book Sir John Magill’s Last Journey, one of the conspirators stays on the night before the crime at the Turk’s Head hotel (unnamed) in Grey Street, Newcastle, before travelling on to castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway. Naturally there is a bit about the timetable of his motor-car journey!
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