Two young cousins go for a canoe trip on the upper reaches of the Thames, staying at inns on the way. Derek Burtell is a coarse libertine, his health eroded by drink and drugs. If he lives another few weeks he will inherit his grandfather's fortune; if not, his cousin Nigel will. One morning Nigel leaves the boat, ostensibly to attend an examination at Oxford; when he returns to the river Derek is nowhere to be found. The broken canoe turns up just downstream of the lock where Nigel disembarked; but where is Derek?
Nigel, under suspicion, promptly disappears, and Miles Bredon, Knox's detective, is called in to investigate by the Indescribable Insurance Company, which has insured Derek on behalf of his creditors. Bredon, aided by his wife Angela and Inspector Leyland of the CID, flings himself at the case with inexhaustible energy and uncovers what appear to be half-a-dozen plots involving discarded note-cases, faked photographs, impostors and dragged corpses. But he still needs a hefty assist from coincidence to help him come up with the solution.
There are many Carrian apects to this book, especially in the way increasingly complex layers of deductions are hung from what appears at first to be a simple occurrence. It is well written and attractively rural in its setting. I enjoyed it a great deal, but for me it failed as a detective story: partly because of the introduction of coincidence, partly because the reader simply isn't prepared for the complete reversal of character that is revealed towards the end. Others may disagree. But either way, it deserves to be read and remembered.
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