Freeman Wills Crofts 
The Cask [PDF ebook] 

THIS book introduced to the public a new Master of Detective Fiction, and Mr. Crofts is now a very famous name indeed to the many enthusiastic students of detective novels. It has all the great virtues; a mysterious murder cunningly conceived and carried out; the strongest suspicion ingeniously thrown on an innocent man; a subtle alibi brilliantly shattered by an unfaltering process of analysis. The book is flawless in design and presents an intellectual problem of supreme interest. The lover of detective stories can want nothing better. As the Outlook said, “In construction and invention Mr. Crofts has no living equal.”