He says it’s something serious. Might be murder.

When the well-dressed Mrs. Wilson came into his office, her business seemed simple enough-although a little odd and mysterious for a woman of her bearing. She wanted Travers to find a missing man, who used to do a second-rate Houdini act in music halls. If Travers found her man, he was not to contact Mrs. Wilson but to advertise his find in the European edition of the New York Times.

As first one person disappears and then another, what should have been a routine assignment becomes intriguingly complex. And the case becomes dangerous when a murdered man is discovered with Travers’s calling card in his pocket.

Baffling and exciting, this adventure with the urbane Ludovic Travers will please his fans and all connoisseurs of the genuine detective story.

The Case of the Dead Man Gone was originally published in 1961. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

Had me Bushed. Sunday Telegraph

The button-holing compulsion of Mr. Bush’s narration and the easy charm of his detective make reading it a pleasure. Birmingham Post