E Phillips Oppenheim

This volume of 3 Detectives collects the stories of three early investigators. The Hon. Augustus Champnell, Richard Marsh's aristocratic detective, featured in five short stories (as well as making cameos in a couple of supernatural mystery novels). Jane Sprood had already tackled suffrage and prohibition, so taking the step into the detective business, where she could show that women were just as good as men, if not better, seemed the next logical step. E. Phillips Oppenheim's detective Stanley Brooke unearths the strange and criminous underbelly of London, but the greatest challenge he tackles is how to capture the heart of his beautiful but grim partner, Constance. These are three very different detectives, all contributing to the foundation of the genre's history.