THE BACKWARD REVIEWER
William F. Deeck


TIMOTHY KNOX – Death in the State House. Houghton Mifflin, hardcover, 1934. Black Cat Detective #24, digest-sized paperback, 1946.

   In the Capitol of an unnamed state — internal evidence suggests New Jersey — the Governor is working late. When someone inserts a knife in his neck. he stops working. Since the Governor is a womanizer, a gambler, and an owner of a “speak” and gambling den, he has lots of enemies.i

   Called in to investigate is Eli Scott, apple grower and chief of police of a small town. Solving the murder is beyond the dubious talents of the capital city’s police since this is an impossible crime: Those who could have murdered the Governor all clear each other.

   An only novel, interesting primarily because it’s a rather good impossible crime for the times.

— Reprinted from MYSTERY READERS JOURNAL, Vol. 6, No. 3, Fall 1990, “Political Mysteries.”


Bibliographic Notes: Bill was quite correct in saying that this was Timothy Knox’s only novel. What he may not have known is that Knox was the pseudonym of Charles Fisher & Elizabeth K. Read, about either little is known. Fisher, however, was also the author of a short story collection entitled Some Unaccountable Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (1956; perhaps self-published).