- By Brian Flynn
- First published: UK: 1929. Reprinted Dean Street Press.
This is a detective story. Those who like detective stories will enjoy it. (Dyspeptic, port-stained gentleman.) It’s extremely conventional – financier and butler murdered at Christmas – told in pompous, stilted dialogue. Detection tedious, solution incredible and unfair. Below the level of the three other Flynns I’ve read.
Contemporary reviews
The Bystander (Ralph Straus, 27 February 1929): We come to more serious crimes in two detective stories which I can recommend. A new puzzle by Brian Flynn always attracts me, and The Murders Near Mapleton, if not the equal of the – to me – ever-memorable Billiard-Room Mystery, recounts a most mysterious affair. Mr. Anthony Bathurst, that bright young man in whom even Scotland Yard finds so useful an ally, once again appears, and few readers are likely to understand what really happened on Christmas Eve at Sir Eustace Vernon’s country house before Mr. Flynn, or, rather, Mr. Bathurst, chooses to explain.
The Grandest Game in the World 