Freeman Wills Crofts has 11 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 3 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 1 ratings. The most-rated is Mystery in the Channel.
Mystery in the Channel
Summary
The captain of the Newhaven to Dieppe steamer spots a small pleasure yacht lying motionless in the water and, on closer inspection, sees a body lying on the deck. When members of his crew go aboard the yacht, they find not one male corpse but two. The dead men were chairman and vice chairman of Moxon General Securities, one of the largest financial houses in the country. Inspector Joseph French of Scotland Yard is called in. French soon discovers that Moxon's is on the brink of collapse. Moxon and Deeping seem to have been fleeing the country with their ill-gotten gains, but who killed them, and how?
©2016 Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts (P)2017 Soundings
Inspector French's Greatest Case
Summary
From the Collins Crime Club archive, the first Inspector French novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed 'The King of Detective Story Writers'. The first Inspector French mystery. At the offices of the Hatton Garden diamond merchant, Duke and Peabody, the body of old Mr Gething is discovered beside a now empty safe. With multiple suspects, the robbery and murder is clearly the work of a master criminal and requires a master detective to solve it. Meticulous as ever, Inspector Joseph French of Scotland Yard embarks on an investigation that takes him from the streets of London to Holland, France and Spain and finally to a ship bound for South America.
©2016 Freeman Wills Crofts (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers
Inspector French and the Box Office Murders
Summary
From the Collins Crime Club archive, the fifth Inspector French novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed 'The King of Detective Story Writers'. The puzzle of the purple sickle. The suicide of a sales clerk at the box office of a London cinema leaves another girl in fear for her life. Persuaded to seek help from Scotland Yard, Miss Darke confides in Inspector Joseph French about a gambling scam by a mysterious trio of crooks and that she believes her friend was murdered. When the girl fails to turn up the next day and the police later find her body, French's inquiries reveal that similar girls have also been murdered, all linked by their jobs and by a sinister stranger with a purple scar....
©1929 Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Inspector French and the Starvel Hollow Tragedy
Summary
From the Collins Crime Club archive, the third Inspector French novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed 'The King of Detective Story Writers'. Three Corpses for Inspector French A chance invitation from friends saves Ruth Averill's life on the night her uncle's old house in Starvel Hollow is consumed by fire, killing him and incinerating the fortune he kept in cash. Dismissed at the inquest as a tragic accident, the case is closed - until Scotland Yard is alerted to the circulation of bank notes supposedly destroyed in the inferno. Inspector Joseph French suspects that dark deeds were done in the Hollow that night and begins to uncover a brutal crime involving arson, murder and body snatching.
©1927 Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery: An Inspector French Mystery
Summary
From the Collins Crime Club archive, the second Inspector French audiobook by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed 'The King of Detective Story Writers'. The Return of Inspector French When young Maxwell Cheyne discovers that a series of mishaps are the result of unwelcome attention from a dangerous gang of criminals, he teams up with a young woman who is determined to help him outwit them. But when she disappears, he finally decides to go to Scotland Yard for help. Concerned by the developing situation, Inspector Joseph French takes charge of the investigation and applies his trademark methods to track down the kidnappers and thwart their intentions.
©2016 Freeman Wills Crofts (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
The Hog's Back Mystery
Summary
Dr James Earle and his wife live in comfortable seclusion near the Hog's Back, a ridge in the North Downs in the beautiful Surrey countryside. When Dr Earle disappears from his cottage, Inspector French is called in to investigate. At first he suspects a simple domestic intrigue - and begins to uncover a web of romantic entanglements beneath the couple's peaceful rural life. The case soon takes a more complex turn. Other people vanish mysteriously, one of Dr Earle's houseguests among them. What is the explanation for the disappearances? If the missing people have been murdered, what can be the motive?
©2015 Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts (P)2015 Soundings
Inspector French and the Sea Mystery
Summary
From the Collins Crime Club archive, the fourth Inspector French novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed 'The King of Detective Story Writers'. The Body That Came from Nowhere Off the coast of Burry Port in South Wales, two fishermen discover a shipping crate and manage to haul it ashore. Inside is the decomposing body of a brutally murdered man. With nothing to indicate who he is or where it came from, the local police decide to call in Scotland Yard. Fortunately Inspector Joseph French does not believe in insoluble cases - there are always clues to be found if you know what to look for. Testing his theories with his accustomed thoroughness, French's ingenuity sets him off on another investigation.
©1928 Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Inspector French and Sir John Magill's Last Journey
Summary
From the Collins Crime Club archive, the sixth Inspector French novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed 'The King of Detective Story Writers'. A murder mystery without a clue. When Sir John Magill, the wealthy Irish industrialist, fails to show up at his hometown on a well-publicised visit, neither his family nor the Belfast police can explain his disappearance. Foul play is suspected when his bloodstained hat is discovered, and Scotland Yard is called in. With his characteristic genius for reconstruction, Inspector French evolves a gruesome theory about what happened to the elderly man, but his reputation - and that of Scotland Yard - will depend on finding out who was responsible.
©1930 Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
The Groote Park Murder
Summary
From a murder in South Africa to the tracking down of a master criminal in northern Scotland, this is a true classic of Golden Age detective fiction by one of its most accomplished champions. When a signalman discovers a mutilated body inside a railway tunnel near Groote Park, it seems to be a straightforward case of a man struck by a passing train. But Inspector Vandam of the Middeldorp police isn’t satisfied that Albert Smith’s death was accidental, and he sets out to prove foul play in a baffling mystery which crosses continents from deepest South Africa to the wilds of northern Scotland, where an almost identical crime appears to have been perpetrated. The Groote Park Murder was the last of Freeman Wills Crofts’ stand-alone crime novels, foreshadowing his iconic Inspector French series and helping to cement his reputation (according to his publishers) as ‘the greatest and most popular detective writer in the world’. Like The Cask, The Ponson Case and The Pit-Prop Syndicate before it, here were a delightfully ingenious plot, impeccable handling of detail and an overwhelming surprise ‘curtain’ from a masterful crime writer on the cusp of global success. This Detective Club classic is introduced with an essay by Freeman Wills Crofts, unseen since 1937, about The Writing of a Detective Novel.
©2019 Freeman Wills Crofts (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers
The 12.30 from Croydon
Summary
We begin with a body. Andrew Crowther, a wealthy retired manufacturer, is found dead in his seat on the 12.30 flight from Croydon to Paris. Rather less orthodox is the ensuing flashback in which we live with the killer at every stage, from the first thoughts of murder to the strains and stresses of living with its execution. Seen from the criminal's perspective, a mild-mannered Inspector by the name of French is simply another character who needs to be dealt with. This is an unconventional yet gripping story of intrigue, betrayal, obsession, justification and self-delusion. And will the killer get away with it?
©2016 Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts (P)2016 Soundings
Antidote to Venom
Summary
George Surridge, director of the Birmington Zoo, is a man with many worries: his marriage is collapsing; his finances are insecure; and an outbreak of disease threatens the animals in his care. As Surridge's debts mount and the pressure on him increases, he begins to dream of miracle solutions. But is he cunning enough to turn his dreams into reality - and could he commit the most devious murder in pursuit of his goals? This ingenious crime novel, with its unusual 'inverted' structure and sympathetic portrait of a man on the edge, is one of the greatest works by this highly respected author.
©2015 Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts (P)2015 Soundings