Death at the Dog

It is late 1939 and Crescy Hardwick is a charismatic, if unpredictable, divorcée who seems to have found her place in the world at last…

She loves and cherishes the rural cottage she has rented for the past few years.

So, it is especially galling when she receives notice from the landlord of her impending eviction.

Being Crescy, she does not take it well…

But she is not the only person in the community to despise her landlord, Mathew Scaife. Most of the local people and even his own family seem to resent him.

Nobody mourns when old Mathew is discovered dead in his chair at the local pub. Indeed, it seems likely that he would have been swiftly forgotten – were it not for the eagle eyes of an apparently bumbling doctor, who makes an astonishing discovery.
Mathew Scaife was murdered; quickly and quietly and in a room full of people.

How could this be?

It is up to Inspector Guy Northeast to find out who killed Mathew and why. Returning reluctantly to the area, he quickly works out that the prime suspect is Crescy Hardwick.

Which is something Guy finds difficult to come to terms with, for a host of reasons … not all of them professional, or even logical.

As Guy establishes the ingenious method used to kill Scaife, and as the case against Crescy mounts, Inspector Northeast must determine whether that case is based in fact, or whether something more complicated is going on …

Many people disliked Mathew Scaife. But who would be willing to risk the gallows to kill him? And why?

As Guy investigates the people around him, he discovers that some of them differ greatly from the image they present to the world. The question is, is Crescy among those individuals?

And if so, could she be a murderess, or has somebody else been guilty all along?

Death at the Dog is a chilling murder mystery that keeps up the suspense until the very last page.

Praise for Joanna Cannan


‘An excellent English rural tale.” — Jacques Barzun & Wendell Hertig Taylor in A Catalogue of Crime
‘Classic detective fiction’ – Thomas Waugh

Before Joanna Cannan tried her hand at detective fiction, her books dealt primarily with the aftermath of World War I and life in England during the Great Depression, although several of her novels did have elements of crime fiction in them. All show her keen interest in the social mores of the day and how people behave in difficult times. During the war, Cannan devoted her energies with great success to writing fiction for young readers.