You’ll face two charges, I said. One for murder and one for extortion.

Ludovic Travers remembered Brian Jedmont as a photographer whose ambition outran his sense of ethics. The Broad Street Detective Agency had stopped using his services in unfortunate circumstances, and Travers was accordingly surprised when one day Jedmont turned up at the office anxious to become a client on his own account. Specifically, he wanted Travers to investigate an American who was busily beguiling Jedmont’s aunt into the purchase of some questionable oil shares. Was it the old story of the con-man and the gullible wealthy widow? Travers agreed to try to find the answer, but in doing so he became involved in matters of blackmail and murder as well. A three-ring puzzle, in fact, and as ingeniously intriguing a one as that old master of the genuine detective story, Christopher Bush, has ever challenged his readers to solve.

The Case of the Three-Ring Puzzle was originally published in 1962. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

Admirers of Ludovic Travers will find him at his best in this intricately-turned baffler. Boston Globe

First rate. Washington Star