Inspector French and the Box Office Murders

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 SICKLEThe 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 . . .