Bodies in a Bookshop

Ruthven Campbell Todd

Botanist Max Boyle visits "a curious little shop in a side-street off the Tottenham Court Road" in London and is delighted with the bibliophilic treasures he finds. He also stumbles across something less pleasant: in a back room, an unlit gas ring emits its noxious fumes, and two corpses lie sprawled on the floor. Boyle calls in "The Bishop" - Chief Inspector Reginald F. Bishop of Scotland Yard - who in turns coaxes Boyle's mentor, Professor John Stubbs, a rotund old Scottish botanist and amateur criminologist, to lend his assistance. The salty old professor, quaffing pint after pint of good British beer, his pipe emitting clouds of foul smoke; the protesting Boyle, who would rather be basking in the sun on the Scilly Islands; and the polite, skeptical, world-weary Bishop soon delve beneath the tip of a sinister iceberg to discover skulduggery and dark deeds. Fueled as much by...

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