Mr. Marcus Smallbone was found dead under most original
circumstances. Due to the lawyer Abel Horniman’s extremely sophisticated
sorting system, a variety of clients have their own deed boxes, which are
sealed in an air-tight manner in order to prevent the accidental destruction of
documents. A key goes missing, a key belonging to the deed box of the Ichabod
Stokes trust fund, of which Messrs. Smallbone and Horniman are the sole
trustees. Mr. Horniman is now dead and Mr. Smallbone is nowhere to be found.
Fearing the worst, that perhaps Mr. Smallbone has run off with the money, the
box is forced open… and the firm’s employees make a grisly discovery: Mr.
Smallbone, or rather his corpse, is in the deed box, and apparently has been there
for weeks.
It is the plot of Michael Gilbert’s Smallbone Deceased, a book that everyone has told me is an absolute
masterpiece—a must-read for detective fiction fans. But of course, that’s what
people were telling me about Hamlet,
Revenge! and I didn’t quite agree. So is this book really as good as its
reputation suggests? Or is this just a lot of hype?
