Book Review :  Inspector French and the Loss of the ‘Jane Vosper’

Freeman Wills Crofts worked as a railway engineer and trained as a civil engineer. He makes good use of this precision both in his description of what the criminals did to achieve their aims and in the rigorous investigation of Chief Detective Inspector French.

The Jane Vosper is carrying five cargoes in its holds from London to various ports in South America ranging from Pernambuco to Buenos Aires.

As Jane Vosper chugs past the coast of Portugal, four explosions over a short period of time, cause the bulkheads to buckle and the captain fears the ship will sink, so he orders the crew to abandon ship.

The goods are insured. The Land & Sea Insurance Co., Ltd must establish the cause of the explosions following their client’s claim for 350 lighting units being shipped to South America. They employ an investigator, John Sutton, to find out whether any fraud has taken place. Then, before anyone knows what the secretive Sutton might have uncovered, he disappears. His wife approaches Scotland Yard to request that Sutton’s friend, Chief Inspector Joseph French, be deployed to find out what may have happened.

French is extremely rigorous and pieces together a number of small clues into a convincing story where, as you might expect, all is not as it first appears. The plot is intricate and never leads in the direction expected. French finds he’s dealing with a blackmailer and thief, rather than a fraudster.