Ask A Policeman

About this book

**Lord Comstock is a barbarous newspaper tycoon with enemies in high places. His murder in the study of his country house poses a dilemma for the Home Secretary. In the hours before his death, Lord Comstock’s visitors included the government Chief Whip, an Archbishop, and the Assistant Commissioner for Scotland Yard. Suspicion falls upon them all and threatens the impartiality of any police investigation. Abandoning protocol, the Home Secretary invites four famous detectives to solve the case: Mrs Adela Bradley, Sir John Saumarez, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Mr Roger Sheringham. All are different, all are plausible, all are on their own – and none of them can ask a policeman...** To produce this classic whodunit, the Detection Club adopted a completely new approach: Milward Kennedy proposed the title, John Rhode plotted the murder and provided the suspects, and four of their contemporaries were asked to lend their well-known detectives to the task of providing solutions to the crime. But there was to be another twist: the authors would swap detectives and use the characters in their sections of the book. Thus Gladys Mitchell and Helen Simpson swapped Mrs Bradley and Sir John Saumarez, and Dorothy Sayers and Anthony Berkeley swapped Lord Peter Wimsey and Roger Sheringham, enabling the authors to indulge in skilful and sly parodies of each other. The contributors are: John Rhode, Helen Simpson, Gladys Mitchell, Anthony Berkeley, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Milward Kennedy.

Themes & subjects

About the authors

Dorothy L. Sayers

13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957

An English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator and Christian humanist.

Cecil John Charles Street

3 May 1884 – 8 December 1964

Cecil John Charles Street was a British army officer and a prolific writer of detective stories. He authored more than 140 novels. John Street used multiple pen names under which he produced multiple long series of novels: one under the name of John Rhode, the majority featuring the academic Dr. Priestley; another under the name of Miles Burton, the majority featuring the retired naval officer Desmond Merrion; and a third under the name Cecil Waye.

Gladys Mitchell

21 April 1901 – 27 July 1983

Gladys Mitchell was an English author best known for her creation of Mrs. Bradley, the heroine of 66 detective novels. She also wrote under the pseudonyms Stephen Hockaby and Malcolm Torrie. - Wikipedia