J.S. Fletcher Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Poetry Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

J.S. Fletcher
Joseph Smith Fletcher was a British writer and journalist and was born February 7, 1863 in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and was the son of a clergyman. His dad died when he was only eight months old, and after which his grandma raised him on a farm in Darrington, close to Pontefract. Joseph was educated at Silcoates School in Wakefield, and after studying law for a short time, he became a journalist.

At the age of twenty, he started working in journalism, as a sub-editor in London. He subsequently went back to his native Yorkshire, where he worked first on the Leeds Mercury using the pen name A Son of the Soil, and then worked as a special correspondent for the Yorkshire Post covering Edward VII’s coronation in the year 1902.

His first published books were poetry. Then he moved on to write numerous books of historical fiction and history, many of which dealt with Yorkshire, which led to his selection as a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

In the year 1914, he penned his first detective novel and went on to write more than a hundred more, many of which featured Ronald Camberwell, the private detective.

Joseph published multiple crime fiction novels during the “Golden Age of Detective Fiction”, especially his “The Middle Temple Murder”, which served as the basic formulaic template for writing detective fiction books. Although this novel, along with many of his others, didn’t share too many general traits with those that characterize this literary era.

He was married to Rosamond Langbridge, the Irish writer. They had a son, Rev. Valentine Fletcher, who held various ministries across all of Yorkshire, including Sedbergh and Bradford, and was a writer himself of various children’s books.

He died a week short of his 72nd birthday in Surrey on January 30, 1935. He was survived by his son Valentine and wife Rosamond.

“The Middle-Temple Murder” is a stand alone novel and was released in 1919. All of this led to Mr. Aylmore, M.P. appearing in the witness box. And Spargo knew that it was that appearance for which the crowded court had been waiting on.

Thanks to his own realistic and vivid specials in the Watchman, everyone there had already become thoroughly acquainted with the mass of evidence represented by the nine witnesses that had been in the box before Mr. Aylmore entered into it.

They were familiar, too, with the facts that Mr. Aylmore had permitted Spargo to print after the interview they had at the club, which Ronald Breton had arranged. Why then, the extraordinary interest that the Member of Parliament’s appearance so aroused?

“The Orange Yellow Diamond” is a stand alone novel and was released in 1920. An elderly pawnbroker gets murdered in the London parish of Paddington, a down on his luck, young writer gets accused of this crime. However it’s then learned that the pawnbroker had had in his possession this extraordinary South African diamond that was worth more than eighty-thousand pounds, which is now missing.

It falls on Melky Rubenstein to unravel this mystery and prove that the young man is innocent. However what’s the significance of the Spanish manuscript? What about the mysterious Mr. Mori Yada? And what part do the Chinese medical students play?

“The Markenmore Mystery” is a stand alone novel and was released in 1922. Guy Markenmore, after seven years of silence, goes back to his family seat at Markenmore court. Knowing that Sir Anthony, his dad, is close to dying, he’s anxious to reassure his younger siblings that he’ll not make any claims on the family money even if he cannot help but inherit the old man’s title. Sir Anthony dies later that night, however the question of inheritance becomes academic when Guy’s murdered while he’s crossing the downs.

The close by town of Selcaster is alive with gossip, and suspicion soon falls heavily on Guy’s love rival, John Harborough, who also coincidentally went back to the area that fateful night. However DS Blick of Scotland Yard’s determined not to leave nobody unsuspected in his mission to solve the Markenmore mystery.

“The Mazaroff Murder” is a stand alone novel and was released in 1923. Mervyn Holt, who was invalided out of the army and trying to find work, becomes the paid companion of Mr. Mazaroff, an eccentric and rich diamond merchant that has recently returned to England.

Traveling north, the pair soon become firm friends, however their trip gets interrupted in the most stunning of fashions when Mazaroff is discovered murdered on Marrasdale Moor. Was this truly a case of opportunistic robbery with some violence? Or could the truth lie in the dead guy’s mysterious past? It’s all up to Holt to learn the truth.

“The Cartwright Gardens Murder” is a stand alone novel and was released in 1923. Lady Cheale gets implicated suddenly in an odd case of murder that removes Alfred Jakyns when he’s most inconvenient and powerful.

This isn’t merely a money crime, even though there is a fortune at stake. There are bigger things involved here, and in fact, while the plot unravels, the reader comes to discover the hidden motives of each of the numerous characters involved. Dr. Syphan (the odd and eccentric physician), Jennison (the little clerk that thirsts for adventure and winds up getting more than he bargained for), and Mrs. Nicholas Jakyn (a mysterious woman), along with many other suspicious people.

“The Mortover Grange Mystery” is a stand alone novel and was released in 1926. Inspector Wedgwood has got a tough case on his hands. John Wraypoole, the genealogist, has been discovered brutally murder in the apartment of Miss Tandy, the typist that was working on the dead man’s recent manuscript.

With this manuscript now missing, Wedgwood now suspects that the solution to this mystery of Wraypoole’s death lies in one secret uncovered in the antiquary’s newest research.

Wedgwood’s investigations lead him up to the north country mansion of Mortover Grange. However what connection could this isolate spot have with more sinister events playing out in London? And what was the secret that wound up costing Wraypoole his life?