Biography
Freeman Wills Crofts was born in Dublin, the son of a deceased Army Medical Service surgeon-lieutenant. His mother re-married Jonathan Harding, the Vicar of Gilford, and Crofts spent his childhood in the Gilford vicarage. He attended Methodist College and Campbell College in Belfast. At age eighteen, he was apprenticed to his uncle, Berkeley Deane Wise, who was chief engineer of the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway. He eventually became Chief Assistant Engineer at the Railway.
In 1919, during an illness-induced absence from work, he wrote his first novel, The Cask (1920), which established him as a new master of detective fiction. Crofts continued to write steadily, producing a book almost every year for thirty years, in addition to a number of short stories and plays.
In 1919, during an illness-induced absence from work, he wrote his first novel, The Cask (1920), which established him as a new master of detective fiction. Crofts continued to write steadily, producing a book almost every year for thirty years, in addition to a number of short stories and plays.
Books by Freeman Wills Crofts
The affair at Little Wokeham
Fatal venture
Sir John Magills Last Journey
The cask
Antidote to venom
Inspector French's greatest case
A Losing Game
James Tarrant Adventurer
Murderers Make Mistakes
The Sea Mystery
Mystery of The Sleeping Car Express
Country House Murders
The Scoop / Behind the Screen
The Loss of the Jane Vosper
The Pit-Prop Syndicate
Mystery in the channel
The End of Andrew Harrison
Anything to Declare?
Golden Ashes
The Cheyne Mystery
Crime at Guildford
Death of a train
The 12:30 from Croydon
French strikes oil
Inspector French and the Starvel Tragedy
Silence for the Murderer
The four gospels in one story
Young Robin Brand, detective
Death on the way
Fear Comes to Chalfont
Four great mystery novels
Found floating
Mystery on Southampton Water
Wilful and premeditated
Wilful and premeditated
The Hog's Back mystery
The Box Office Murders
The Ponson Case