Down Under

“You talk of him as if he were alive.”
“He is alive,” said Benbow Smith.
“And you think he would do murder?”
“I am quite sure that he would do murder, Captain Loddon.”

Rose Anne disappeared on the eve of her wedding to Captain Oliver Loddon. Her fiancé received a letter posted from Paris saying she was sorry but there was someone else.

To the police it is quite simple. But Oliver can’t believe Rose Anne capable of such a cruel act, and then discovers that her note carries quite another message. Benbow Smith is brought in to investigate, and we learn the young woman’s disappearance is connected to an escaped and dangerous criminal – and Rose Anne isn’t the only one who’s recently gone missing…

Down Under was originally published in 1937, and was the fourth and last novel to feature the series character Benbow Smith. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“When I pick up a book by Patricia Wentworth I think, now to enjoy myself – and I always do.” Mary Dell, Daily Mirror