What could be more innocent than a crossword puzzle? A game to while away an idle hour, a diversion for the lonely. And yet its cunning formula could still be turned to sinister purpose. The curious crossword devised by Mr. George Winterton turned out to be part of a game for high stakes - it was the creation of a man whose brother had just drowned and who feared for his own life. Yet the dog hadn't barked...

When Detective-Constable Owen (B.A. Oxon, pass degree only) arrives in the picturesque village of Suffby Cove, he is faced with the mystery of an appallingly ingenious murder - one whose ramifications reach out of England to the continent, and touch the lives of many men and women.

Crossword Mystery is the third of E.R. Punshon's acclaimed Bobby Owen mysteries, first published in 1934 and part of a series which eventually spanned thirty-five novels.

"What is distinction? The few who achieve it step - plot or no plot - unquestioned into the first rank... in the works of Mr. E.R. Punshon we salute it every time." Dorothy L. Sayers