Murder Makes Mistakes

Inspector Littlejohn faces the most baffling case of his career when a killer in Cheshire strikes close to home in this acclaimed mystery series.

It’s a shock what happens to Sergeant Cromwell, faithful friend and assistant to Superintendent Littlejohn. While attending his uncle’s funeral in the pretty village of Rushton Inferior, he is shot in the head. Now, Littlejohn faces a distressing crisis—and a perplexing question: Why was Cromwell shot in Rushton, where he is quite unknown?

Littlejohn rushes north to the hospital where his sergeant is lying. There, he learns that the crime was committed with the smallest bullet the surgeon has ever seen. A shot from a pop gun, in fact. As the famous superintendent gets to work, he unravels a series of secrets and incidents that shed new light on Rushton—and his friend.

George Bellairs is the pseudonym under which Harold Blundell (1902–1982) wrote police procedural thrillers in rural British settings. He was born in Lancashire, England, and worked as a bank manager in Manchester. After retiring, Bellairs moved to the Isle of Man, where several of his novels are set, to be with friends and family.

In 1941 Bellairs wrote his first mystery, Littlejohn on Leave, during spare moments at his air raid warden’s post. The title introduced Thomas Littlejohn, the detective who appears in fifty-seven of his novels. Bellairs was also a regular contributor to the Manchester Guardian and worked as a freelance writer for newspapers both local and national.