UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND AUTHOR · FICTION · GENERAL
A. E. W. Mason
Also known as: A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason, A. W. E. Mason
Alfred Edward Woodley Mason (7 May 1865 – 22 November 1948) was an English author and Liberal Party Member of Parliament. He is best remembered for his 1902 novel of courage and cowardice in wartime, The Four Feathers, and is also known as the creator of Inspector Hanaud, a French detective who was an early template for Agatha Christie's famous Hercule Poirot. His prolific output in short stories and novels were frequently made and remade into films during his lifetime; though many of the silent versions have been lost or forgotten, the productions of Fire Over England (1937) and The Four Feathers (1939) remain enduring classics of British cinema.
It came by mail, regular postage, the old-fashioned way since the Judge was almost eighty and distrusted modern devices.
— from The Summons
Most acclaimed
The House in Lordship Lane
Enter Bryan Devisher, over the side of the ketch in which Mordaunt was taking Mr. Julius Ricardo home to London on the summons of his old friend, Inspector Hanaud of the Paris Surete and the English ' idioms.' Exit, Devisher and Mordaunt. Enter Daniel Horbury. Exit Daniel Horbury-violently, with his throat slit in the garden room of the House in Lordship Lane, with Olivia, his wife, locked in her bedroom upstairs. Enter Septimus Crottle, patriarchal, tough old shipowner ; and the Crottle family, at a Sunday evening ' reading attended by Hanaud and Ricardo. Re-enter Mordaunt and Devisher-in Cairo. Exit Septimus Crottle, mysteriously ; re-enter Hanaud, hurriedly ; re-enter Septimus with all the toughness gone. But the house in Lordship Lane has never gone out of the story, and the master-craftsman brings us back to it at the end. And, when you read what really had happened in the garden room that night when Olivia drove her husband down to Lordship Lane, you remember the ejaculation of one of A. E. W. Mason's reviewers : ' What a work of art a thriller can be ! '
The witness for the defence
2004
Unassured of a family inheritance, Henry Thresk dedicates himself to pursuing a career in law. His determination is exacting; as a man of limited means, it has to be. Even when he meets Stella, a supremely appealing young woman, he refuses to consider love and marriage. He must stick to the path he has laid out for himself. Eight years later, on a solicitor call to Bombay, Henry finds himself face to face with a photograph of his long-lost love. Stella is married to Captain Ballantyne, an older man clever at politics and languages who is revealed to be a violent brute. Henry is determined to rescue Stella, but before he can enact a plan the captain is discovered shot to death with his wife’s rifle. Henry, a respected man of the law, is called as a witness for the defense—only the first of many twists in this deftly plotted mystery. If his instincts are wrong, he will sacrifice his life and career for a woman he hardly knows.
At the Villa Rose, in Four acts
1966
The place: Aix-les-Bains, a lakeside town in southeast France, popular for vacations of the well-to-do. The players: (1) The young Englishman, Harry Wethermill, who, after a brilliant career at Oxford and at Munich, had applied his scientific genius and made a fortune for himself at the age of twenty-eight. (2) Mr. Ricardo, approaching the fifties in age; a widower — "a state greatly to his liking, for he avoided at once the irksomeness of marriage and the reproaches justly leveled at the bachelor; finally, he was rich, having amassed a fortune in Mincing Lane, which he had invested in profitable securities." (3) Celia Harland, the beautiful, free-spirited 19-year-old English traveling companion of wealthy Mme. Dauvray, and recently romantic companion of Wethermill. (4) Inspector Hanaud, the cleverest of French police detectives, on vacation at Aix-les-Bains. The newspaper article: "Late last night, an appalling murder was committed at the Villa Rose. Mme. Camille Dauvray, an elderly, rich woman who was well known at Aix, was discovered on the floor of her salon, fully dressed and brutally strangled, while upstairs, her maid was found in bed, chloroformed, with her hands tied securely behind her back. ... Mme. Dauvray's motor-car has disappeared, and with it a young Englishwoman who came to Aix with her as her companion. The motive of the crime leaps to the eyes. Mme. Dauvray was famous in Aix for her jewels, which she wore with too little prudence...they have disappeared." With Ricardo's help, Wethermill beseeches Hanaud to take up the case and help the local police find the missing Celia and solve the murder. He believes Celia will be exonerated once she is found. Hanaud considers the evidence and agrees to proceed, but warns Wethermill that he will see the case to the end, even if the outcome is not liked by Wethermill.