Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Cask
    The Cask
    The Cask
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Cask

    Written by Freeman Wills Crofts

    Narrated by Gordon Griffin

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    From the Collins Crime Club archive, the seminal first novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed ‘The King of Detective Story Writers’ and recognised as one of the ‘big four’ Golden Age crime authors.

    The unloading of a consignment of French wine from the steamship Bullfinch is interrupted by a gruesome discovery in a broken cask leaking sawdust and gold sovereigns. But when the shipping clerk returns with the police, the cask and its macabre contents have gone. Following the clues to Paris, Inspector Burnley of Scotland Yard enlists the help of the genial French detective M. Lefarge to check motives and alibis in their hunt for evidence of a particularly fiendish murder.

    This Detective Story Club classic is introduced by Freeman Wills Crofts himself in a unique preface from 1946 about The Cask’s origins.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers
    Release dateMay 2, 2019
    ISBN9780008342449
    Author

    Freeman Wills Crofts

    Freeman Wills Crofts (1 June 1879 – 11 April 1957) was an Irish mystery author, best remembered for the character of Inspector Joseph French. A railway engineer by training, Crofts introduced railway themes into many of his stories, which were notable for their intricate planning. Although outshone by Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler and other more celebrated authors from the golden age of detective fiction, he was highly esteemed by those authors, and many of his books are still in print.

    More audiobooks from Freeman Wills Crofts

    Related to The Cask

    Related audiobooks

    Mystery For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Crossing The Bar

      Mar 11, 2021

      The Edwardian period of English yachting is best remembered for the great cutters and schooners of the racing scene. From Cowes to the Clyde professionally crewed yachts competed for big-money prizes while fortunes changed hands by way of wagers on r

      7 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Feb 21, 2020

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Voyages Of A Simple Sailor Are Over

      Feb 27, 2020

      Suddenly the sea seems a bigger place. That’s because the greatest exponent of shrink-wrapping it for the rest of us, between the covers of his books, has retired from the ocean. Well, almost. ‘I’d never say never, but firstly I feel too much of an a

      3 min read

    • Article

      A New Beginning

      May 27, 2021

      THE JOURNEYING MOON Shortly after the war I married and tried to settle down to a life in London. Like most of my generation, though, I was infected by restlessness. Early in our lives we had been given a taste for the world of action, and too much a

      4 min read

    • Article

      Burning Man Blazes Into Britain: Can Its Wild Sculptural Magic Work In The Dales?

      Mar 23, 2022

      Climbing the inside of Christina Sporrong’s gigantic head, I look up towards the books that are escaping through the top of its open skull and fluttering out into the perfect blue sky. I have to watch my step – there are some gaps in the railings – u

      5 min read

    • Article

      Write Of Passage

      Dec 8, 2022

      Write Of Passage
      3 min read

    • Article

      You Can Go Home Again

      Apr 17, 2023

      You Can Go Home Again
      9 min read

    • Article

      Race Against Time

      Dec 7, 2021

      Race Against Time
      14 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Oct 25, 2019

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Bleeping Frustration

      Sep 8, 2023

      Bleeping Frustration
      2 min read

    • Article

      Race Against Time

      Dec 28, 2021

      Race Against Time
      14 min read

    • Article

      Time Traveller

      May 26, 2022

      Time Traveller
      4 min read

    • Article

      You Can Go Home Again

      Mar 7, 2023

      I'm having this dream. I'm in a field, gazing up at the ruins of an old castle. My father is there. We head for the tower through the wind and tall grass, but all of a sudden we're surrounded by the castle guards. They're on all fours, staring at us,

      9 min read

    • Article

      A Sailor’s Lonely End Acknowledged At Last

      Jul 18, 2019

      Because of the way we sail today, bristling with emergency satellite rescue systems, self-inflating life-jackets, and life-rafts, it is easy to overlook the fact that being lost at sea was, while no less disastrous before the advent of technological

      2 min read

    • Article

      Boat Life

      Jan 27, 2023

      Boat Life
      5 min read

    • Article

      First Blood

      Sep 24, 2019

      First Blood
      20 min read

    • Article

      Defining Vintage

      Feb 14, 2023

      Defining Vintage
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Escape Of Koravitch

      Sep 30, 2019

      The Escape Of Koravitch
      16 min read

    • Article

      The Monarch Of All I Survey

      Nov 22, 2019

      The Monarch Of All I Survey
      6 min read

    • Article

      Coromandel Gold

      Jun 27, 2021

      Coromandel Gold
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Confessional

      May 21, 2020

      The Confessional
      2 min read

    • Article

      It’s The Way You Tell It

      Oct 13, 2023

      It’s The Way You Tell It
      3 min read

    • Article

      Sentimental Homecoming

      Nov 23, 2023

      Sentimental Homecoming
      3 min read

    • Article

      'Barons Of The Sea' Chronicles The Race To Build The Perfect Clipper Ship

      Jul 17, 2018

      Clipper ships are the dream floating before the eyes of all the characters in Steven Ujifusa's fast-paced and entrancing new book.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Worship On High

      Oct 18, 2021

      Worship On High
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Bit Of TLC

      Mar 17, 2022

      Sam Llewellyn sails a 30ft ketch he rescued from dereliction It was a bright, breezy day in the yard. There was the sound of power tools and voices asking other voices to pass the paint, and could they borrow a wrench, and had they finished with the

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Cask

    3.5/5

    39 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      First published in 1920 a golden age mystery book, The events take place in 1912 in both England and France. This is the first book for Freeman Wills Crofts, Interesting read with lost of turn, threads and complex plot. Good book overall with a solid. 3 stars rating. Keep in mind the age of the book while reading.
    • 5/5
      law-enforcement, procedural, Paris, London, murder-investigation *****A classic work combining the Surete and Scotland Yard meticulously digging about in order to get the right murderer enclosed in an airtight legal case in 1912. The plot crisscrosses the channel and has more twists and red herrings than the reader can deal with except to simply read and enjoy!I requested and received a free ebook copy from Dover Publications via NetGalley. Thank you!
    • 4/5
      Freeman Wills Crofts' first mystery, about a wine cask unloaded from a ship from France found to contain gold sovereigns, sawdust, and a woman's body --a cask which vanishes soon after it is discovered. Like several of Crofts' other stories it makes use of his personal professional expertise as engineer for a shipping company, and it was in fact written during an illness while he was still serving as such an engineer. The one major difference from most of his other stories is that it does not involve his series detective Inspector French; the Scotland Yard man who is called in is Inspector Burnley, and the mystery is actually solved by Georges La Touche from France. Considered a classic mystery.