On this page

This page lists novels that feature the British police detective Inspector Dan Pardoe.

Postscript to Poison

Dorothy Bowers

1938

New edition published by Rue Morgue Press in 2005.

An Inspector Pardoe novel.

"Cornelia Lackland ruled her house with an iron fist and a firm grasp on the pocketbook. Her late husband—she was his second wife—had left her in charge of his two granddaughters and his self-made fortune. John Lackland has risen from nothing to something, only to see his own children rebel against him and make bad, impulsive marital choices He was determined that his granddaughters not follow in their footsteps. Cornelia, a former stage actress whose own past was a bit colorful, was more than up to the task. Jenny and Carol lived as virtual prisoners, albeit quite comfortably, in a large house filled with servants in the old cathedral town of Minsterbridge, located just thirty miles from London. What’s more, the two cousins couldn’t even be sure if Mrs. Lackland’s death would set them free, since the provisions of their grandfather’s will were sealed. Things came to a head one hot summer in the late 1930s when the old lady took ill, hovered at the edge of death, and then miraculously recovered. But the night before she was to meet with her solicitor to make yet one more change in her will, she was found dead, the apparent victim of a poisoner. Chief Inspector Dan Pardoe of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate an ever-growing list of suspects."

Shadows Before

Dorothy Bowers

1939

New edition published by Rue Morgue Press in 2005.

An Inspector Pardoe novel.

"'All in common bondage to a hideous future.' That was how young Andrew Pitt looked back on the people who gathered at Spanwater the spring that Mrs Weir was murdered. There was Matthew Weir, the gentle, absent minded scholar to the life, acquitted of an earlier charge of murder but Weir of the Weir Case still; Augustus his brother, impecunious and debonair. There was that uncomfortable person, Mrs Kingdom, grim, spare and quick of eye; and Mond, the sort of butler no one with a choice would choose. A heterogeneous household indeed; and highly interesting even to an expert investigator like Inspector Pardoe."

Deed Without a Name

Dorothy Bowers

1940

New edition published by Rue Morgue Press in 2005.

An Inspector Pardoe novel.

"It might have been a coincidence, but it seemed to Mitfold's three friends that only attempted murder could explain the extraordinary series of accidents he told them of that evening - just a few days before he died. Chief Inspector Dan Pardoe, busy with the baffling problem of Mr Sampson Vick, a rich philanthropist missing from his home, investigates the new case and finds …. Light shed upon the old. The trails converge, and again death closes the end of them. …. Perhaps the strangest feature of the bizarre affair is the peculiarity of the slender clues Pardoe handles; why did Mitfold make bird drawings on scraps of paper, and what did he see when he went to the cinema? And will the reader discover before the inspector where Mitfold's diary was - and what was the clue the German Professor, August Speyer, late of the Nordic Bond, alone held in his hands?"

Fear and Miss Betony

Dorothy Bowers

1941

New edition published by Rue Morgue Press in 2005.

An Inspector Pardoe novel.

"'She was a friendless body.' Said Chief Inspector Dan Pardoe. 'No kith and kin she knew where to find - and the temptation was too great for somebody.' Detective Sergeant Salt coked a homely eyebrow, 'What for? Money?' Pardoe shrugged, 'The what for is our job.' So the tale started to run, like water. It gathered volume and speed as it ran, it carried with it the flotsam and jetsam of other people's lives and characters, hopes and fears, affections, jealousies, hates, ambitions, all the impertinencies of living that death no longer resents. So the tail ran its course - like water - like running water. Like the water of the Thames that runs by New Scotland Yard."