Mystery At Lynden Sands, first published in 1928, is the fourth book in author J. J. Connington’s series featuring chief-constable Sir Clinton Driffield. Set on the English seaside, Driffield encounters the return of a missing heir (who is possibly an impostor), an accidental bigamist, secret marriages and impersonations, embezzlement of trust funds, a kidnapping, and two murders. As is typical of Connington’s detectives, Sir Clinton is able to deduce impressive insights from physical clues. J. J. Connington is a pen-name of Alfred Walter Stewart (1880-1947).

Paul Fordingbridge, with a faintly reproachful glance at his sister, interrupted his study of the financial page ofThe Times and put the paper down on his knee. Deliberately he removed his reading-glasses; replaced them by his ordinary spectacles; and then turned to the restless figure at the window of the private sitting-room. “Well, Jay, you seem to have something on your mind. Would it be too much to ask you to say it—whatever it is—and then let me read my paper comfortably? One can't give one's mind to a thing when there's a person at one's elbow obviously ready to break out into conversation at any moment.” Miss Fordingbridge had spent the best part of half a century in regretting her father's admiration for Herrick. “I can't see myself as Julia of the Night-piece,” she complained with a faint parade of modesty; and it was at her own wish that the hated name had been abbreviated to an initial in family talk. At the sound of her brother's voice she turned away from the sea-view. “I can't imagine why you insisted on coming to this hotel,” she said, rather fretfully. “I can't stand the place. Of course, as it's just been opened, it's useless to expect everything to go like clockwork; but there seems a lot of mismanagement about it. I almost burned my hand with the hot water in my bedroom this morning—ridiculous, having tap-water as hot as that! And my letters got into the wrong pigeon-hole or something; I had to wait ever so long for them. Of course the clerk said he was sorry—but what good does that do? I don't want his sorrow. I want my letters when I ask for them.”

In 1972, in an attempt to elevate the stature of the "crime novel," influential crime writer and critic Julian Symons cast numerous Golden Age detective fiction writers into literary perdition as "Humdrums," condemning their focus on puzzle plots over stylish writing and explorations of character, setting and theme. This volume explores the works of three prominent British "Humdrums"--Cecil John Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, and Alfred Walter Stewart--revealing their work to be more complex, as puzzles and as social documents, than Symons allowed. By championing the intrinsic merit of these mystery writers, the study demonstrates that reintegrating the "Humdrums" into mystery genre studies provides a fuller understanding of the Golden Age of detective fiction and its aftermath.

Mystery At Lynden Sands, first published in 1928, is the fourth book in author J. J. Connington's series featuring chief-constable Sir Clinton Driffield. Set on the English seaside, Driffield encounters the return of a missing heir (who is possibly an impostor), an accidental bigamist, secret marriages and impersonations, embezzlement of trust funds, a kidnapping, and two murders. As is typical of Connington's detectives, Sir Clinton is able to deduce impressive insights from physical clues. J. J. Connington is a pen-name of Alfred Walter Stewart (1880-1947).

The terms of her father's will tie Joyce to her Aunt Evelyn until she is 25 - or Evelyn will inherit the entire estate. But Joyce wants to marry Leslie, and the money she will eventually inherit would be a considerable help to him in his career. Aunt Evelyn is a violent drunk, and one evening Joyce speculates to Leslie that if she fended of one of her aunt's violent attacks and her aunt died of 'one of her heart attacks' she could hardly be held accountable - could she? Leslie isn't really sure. And the next day Aunt Evelyn dies suddenly.

Philip Castleford was more than worried. Were all those years he had spent attending to Winifred's whims, enduring her habits, to count for nothing? He hadn't minded it too much for he thought that his daughter Hilary would have security - but now he found her shabbily treated and his own position undermined by his wife's grasping brothers. Such were the affairs at Carron Hill one fine morning when Winifred was discovered murdered in the deserted summer house ...

An unidentified body is found in a blazing car. A man in the locality is missing. But the corpse in the car is not that of the missing man, though someone has made an uncommonly thorough job of faking it to seem so. And just because his unknown opponent had gone to such lengths to prevent an investigation going further, Detective Mark Brand aka The Counsellor's 'satiable curiosity' is up ... 'As a maker of watertight puzzles Mr Connington has no superior' Daily Mail

'Mr J. J. Connington is a name revered by all specialists on detective fiction' Spectator When Sir Clinton Driffield travels to the village of Raynham Parva to visit his sister, he little imagines that his latest case will involve his own family. His niece has married an Argentinian, and the village is soon filled with exotic incomers, one of whom appears to have been a foreign agent. This unusual case presents Sir Clinton with three interlocking mysteries, which lead to a startling conclusion.