I never did like missing people. Far too often we’ve found them dead.
When that cheerful soul, Doris Bosford, asked Ludovic Travers of the Broad Street Detective Agency to trace her missing husband the case soon involved matters less innocent than a mere disappearance. Andrew Bosford had been a crooner, but investigation showed that his latest source of income seemed concerned with a smuggling racket that had its headquarters in France. With the discovery of a body on the seashore—the body of the last man to employ Andrew as a singer—Ludovic felt the time had come for him to drop Mrs. Bosford as a client.
But the threads were to be put back into his hands as the result of two apparently quite unconnected events, and Ludovic found himself in a situation where it was far from easy to serve the interests both of his clients and those of Scotland Yard. This results in one of the best and most distinctive of Christopher Bush’s mystery novels.
The Case of the Extra Man was originally published in 1956. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.
“Bush gets better and better . . . And Ludovic Travers is becoming one of our favourite sleuths” San Francisco Chronicle
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Christopher Bush was born Charlie Christmas Bush in Norfolk in 1885. His father was a farm labourer and his mother a milliner. In the early years of his childhood he lived with his aunt and uncle in London before returning to Norfolk aged seven, later winning a scholarship to Thetford Grammar School.
As an adult, Bush worked as a schoolmaster for 27 years, pausing only to fight in World War One, until retiring aged 46 in 1931 to be a full-time novelist. His first novel featuring the eccentric Ludovic Travers was published in 1926, and was followed by 62 additional Travers mysteries. These are all to be republished by Dean Street Press.
Christopher Bush fought again in World War Two, and was elected a member of the prestigious Detection Club. He died in 1973.