Murder at Markendon Court by Henry Stanners first edition 1936

London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1936
 
Thick 8vo., pale yellow cloth, backstrip lettered in black; in the charming pictorial dustwrapper printed in yellow, black and green, featuring a man walking in the woodland outside a manor, with a hand clutching a dagger bearing down on him from the sky; unclipped, with overlaid price sticker 2/6 net to front flap; pp. [iv], v-vi, [ii], 9-280, a very good, bright and uptogether example, the cloth fresh and virtually unmarked, with light pushing and darkening to edges; faintly offset to endleaves; together in the very good, bright dustjacket, evenly toned, with a little darkening to the lower panel and folds; nicks and small chips to edges, particularly at spine, with some chipping to foot (not affecting text), and some short closed tears to the front panel. Seldom found with the dustwrapper thus. 
 
Harold H. Stanners (1894–1958) wrote three works of detective fiction in the 1930s, each centering around Professor Harding, an American international law expert staying in England. Keen to be published in the US, Stanners never attained the great success which would allow his works to be printed overseas, and his career was brief, with his final novel The Crowning Murder published in 1938. Murder at Markendon Court is nonetheless a scarce work of detective fiction, and involves the death of a trade union official. Is the culprit the ‘village bad hat’, with whose daughter the victim had been having an affair? The artist with whom the victim was last seen? Or the head of the Summer School in which all the suspects were staying? As one Observer reviewer wrote, “one of the most teasing and ultimately one of the most satisfying crime books of the year”. The book was followed by another mystery, At the Tenth Clue, where a Canon is murdered during a treasure hunt. 
 
Works by Stanners are uncommon in the original pictorial dustwrappers, making this vibrant example scarce indeed.