Caroline Crampton

Welcome to She Done It.

I'm Caroline Crampton.

And welcome back to Green Penguin Book Club, a series within She Done It that documents my journey of reading and discussing every crime or green title from the main Penguin series, in order.

Our book today is The Murders in Parade Street by John Rode, Penguin No.

98.

This book was first published in 1928, and then joined the Green Penguin series in June 1937.

It was the fourth novel to feature Rhodes' recurring detective Dr Lancelot Priestley, a mathematics professor who, as you will hear, starts out in the early books as a forensic investigator in the mould of R. Austin Freeman's Dr Thorndike, and then later develops into more of an armchair consulting detective over the course of the more than 70 novels in which he appears.

As the title suggests, the murders in Praed Street focuses on a series of killings that take place in and around Praed Street in West London, a thoroughfare near Paddington Station.

Several of the victims run businesses on the street or in its immediate vicinity, and the ability of the murderer to strike repeatedly in the same area causes great alarm in the neighbourhood, as well as a lot of press coverage.

Dr Priestley is drawn into the case when his Scotland Yard associate, Inspector Hanslet, comes to him for advice.

He ends up detecting alongside the police and ultimately brings the mystery to a satisfying, if traumatic, conclusion.

John Road was one of several pseudonyms used by the incredibly prolific author Cecil Street.

Under this name, he wrote more than 70 novels, and then there are almost as many again published as Miles Burton.

He had yet another outlet as Cecil Way, in addition to various non-fiction projects and short stories.

He was a founding member of the Detection Club and contributed to several of the club's literary projects.

Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he was an engineer and an artillery officer, winning the military cross during the First World War.

Joining me to discuss the murders in Parade Street is Rinaldo Fagarazzi, who has been an avid reader and collector of Golden Age detective fiction for over 30 years.

On his blog, Witness to the Crime, he reviews crime and detective books from the Golden Age and beyond, including those by familiar authors such as Dorothy L Sayers, R. Austin Freeman and E.C.R.

Lorac,

but also lesser known and harder to collect authors like John Road, Miles Burton, J.J.