Arthur Crook
Created by Anthony Gilbert (pseudonym of Lucy Beatrice Malleson; 1899-1973)

The aptly-named ARTHUR CROOK is a rather shifty, but charming London lawyer-detective who doesn't seem to know much law, but is apparently more than willing to do just about anything or go just about anywhere for his clients. That includes faking evidence and brow-beating witnesses. He doesn't so much solve crimes as bash things around until he gets the outcome he desires.

Part of Crook's appeal is surely that he's so much clearly not just one of the people, and so for the people. No snooty Lord Mucky-muck pretensions here -- he's a lower-class Cockney, with questionable taste in clothing, and a weakness for vulgar, gaudy cars and beer. He's loud, obnoxious (and cheerfully sexist), but clearly devoted to his clients. One wag describes him as "a bright red face, bright red hair and a bright red car," and that about sums him up.

In the course of his adventures, Arthur travels all over England, from the most fog-shrouded and gloomiest of moors and most high-faluting of country estates to the seediest mean streets and dark alleys and cutthroat pubs London can offer. Don't Open the Door! (1945) is supposedly one of the better books in the series, with a good depiction of England during the war.

Anthony Gilbert was actually Lucy Beatrice Malleson, who also wrote as J. Keith, J. Kilmeny Keith and Anne Meredith. She wrote a total of 69 crime novels, but her most popular "hero" by far was Crook, who appeared in 51 novels.

RIYL: Martin Ehrengraf by Lawrence Block; Rumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer

NOVELS

• Murder by Experts (1936)...Buy this book
• The Man Who Wasn't There (1937)
• Murder Has No Tongue (1937)
• Treason in My Breast (1938)
• The Bell of Death (1939)
• The Clock in the Hatbox (1939)...Buy this book
• Dear Dead Woman (1940)
• The Vanishing Corpse (1941)
• The Woman in Red (1941)
• The Case of the Tea-Cosy's Aunt (1942)
• Something Nasty in the Woodshed (1942)
• The Mouse Who Wouldn't Play Ball (1943)
• He Came by Night (1944)
• The Scarlet Button (1944)
• A Spy for Mr. Crook (1944)
• The Black Stage (1945)
• Don't Open the Door! (1945; AKA Death Lifts the Latch)
• Lift Up the Lid (1945)
• The Spinster's Secret (1946)
• Death in the Wrong Room (1947)
• Die in the Dark (1947)
• Death Knocks Three Times (1949)
• Murder Comes Home (1950)
• A Nice Cup of Tea (1950)
• Lady Killer (1951)
• Miss Pinnegar Disappears (1952)
• Footsteps Behind Me (1953)
• Snake in the Grass (1954)
• Is She Dead Too? (1955)
• And Death Came Too (1956)
• Riddle of a Lady (1956)
• Give Death a Name (1957)
• Death Against the Clock (1958)
• Death Takes a Wife (1959)
• Third Crime Lucky (1959)
• Out for the Kill (1960)...Buy this book
• She Shall Die (1961)
• Uncertain Death (1961)
• No Dust in the Attic (1962)
• Ring for a Noose (1963)
• The Fingerprint (1964)
• Knock, Knock, Who's There? (1964)
• Passenger to Nowhere (1965)
• The Looking Glass Murder (1966)
• The Visitor (1967)
• Night Encounter (1968)
• Missing from Her Home (1969)
• Death Wears a Mask (1970)
• Tenant for the Tomb (1971)
• Murder's a Waiting Game (1972)
• A Nice Little Killing (1974)

SHORT STORIES

• "You Can't Hang Twice" (November 1946, EQMM; also 1996, Murder Most British)

Brief respectfully filed by Kevin Burton Smith.