Above Suspicion

Joseph Benkard, the iron-willed brother of the home’s owner, lies lifeless before a stone bench, the back of his head brutally crushed. The massive glass doors to the terrace stand wide open, offering a perfect escape route, yet the local police are confronted by an inexplicable fact: the sanded floor is undisturbed, and only the victim’s own footprints mark the path to the bench. No one could have approached to strike the fatal blow and vanished without a trace.

As the official investigation stalls, an unlikely sleuth emerges: Geoff Peters, a taciturn local stonemason, whose down-to-earth manner conceals a razor-sharp mind. While detectives hunt for a phantom intruder, Peters’ quiet observations uncover a household simmering with secrets – a family living under the constant shadow of death from anonymous letters; a violent quarrel between Benkard and a close friend just hours before the murder; dark motives swirling around a tyrannical will; and a discarded scrap of black fabric.

First published in 1922, Above Suspicion is a masterful Golden Age mystery, presenting a world where the solution lies in the small details everyone else has overlooked.