Title: Crossword Mystery
First published: 1948
Description: What could be more innocent than a crossword puzzle? A game to while away an idle hour, a diversion for the lonely. And yet its cunning formula could still be turned to sinister purpose. The curious crossword devised by Mr. George Winterton turned out to be part of a game for high stakes - it was the creation of a man whose brother had just drowned and who feared for his own life. Yet the dog hadn't barked.... When Detective-Constable Owen (B.A. Oxon, pass degree only) arrives in the picturesque village of Suffby Cove, he is faced with the mystery of an appallingly ingenious murder - one whose ramifications reach out of England to the continent, and touch the lives of many men and women.

*Crossword Mystery*, first published in 1934, is the third of E.R. Punshon's acclaimed Bobby Owen mysteries and part of a series which eventually spanned thirty-five novels.
Subjects: Detective and mystery stories, Crossword puzzles in fiction
Time periods: 1930s