Dying Alderman

Charles Race, newly-appointed Chief Constable, watched the proceedings of the Quenborough city council from the balcony as tempers flared and accusations of graft flew from one member to another. A recess for tea was meant to improve the atmosphere, but Alderman Trant's wife soon appears at Race's tea table, crying out that her husband has been murdered! In a matter of minutes after the meeting had adjourned, Trant was stabbed at his desk in the council room. Race soon realizes that a warren of stairways and exits, and multiple potential suspects, set the stage for a puzzling mystery. Calling in help from Scotland Yard, he starts on the trail of a murderer-but the unexpected twists and turns will hold the reader until the very last page.

The Dying Alderman, by Henry Wade (pseudonym of Major Sir Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher, 1887-1963) was published in 1930.