''Jack-in-the-Box'' is a 1944

detective novel Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as specu ...

by the British author

Alfred Walter Stewart Alfred Walter Stewart (5 September 1880 – 1 July 1947) was a British chemist and part-time novelist who wrote seventeen detective novels and a pioneering science fiction work between 1923 and 1947 under the pseudonym of JJ Connington. He creat ...

, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the sixteenth in his series of novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Sir Clinton Driffield, the Chief Constable of a rural

English county The counties of England are a type of subdivision of England. Counties have been used as administrative areas in England since Anglo-Saxon times. There are three definitions of county in England: the 48 ceremonial counties used for the purpo ...

. It was published by

Hodder and Stoughton Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette.H ...

in London and

Little, Brown and Company Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries, it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emil ...

in the United States. Writing in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' Isaac Anderson felt that "to appreciate this story fully one should either be well grounded in science or take Sir Clinton’s explanations on trust".''New York Times Saturday Review of Books and Art''. Arno Press, 1944. p.10

Synopsis

In 1942, at the height of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, German bombs are raining down on Ambledown to try and knock out a munitions factory. One bomb lands some way outside the town, causing a large

crater A crater is a landform consisting of a hole or depression (geology), depression on a planetary surface, usually caused either by an object hitting the surface, or by geological activity on the planet. A crater has classically been described ...

close to the location of a former

Roman camp ''Castra'' () is a Latin language, Latin term used during the Roman Republic and Roman Empire for a military 'camp', and ''castrum'' () for a 'Fortification, fort'. Either could refer to a building or plot of land, used as a fortified milita ...

. Recent

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

research has unearthed an ancient

hoard A hoard or "wealth deposit" is an archaeological term for a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground, in which case it is sometimes also known as a cache. This would usually be with the intention of ...

on a patch of land earmarked for potential development for the expanding town. Soon afterwards the archaeologist leading the excavation is killed in an air raid. However doubts remain about the case and the possibility of murder arises. The land set aside for redevelopment is owned in trust for the grandchildren of an earlier developer of the town. One by one they begin to die off in inexplicable circumstances. Yet the potential profits of any land sales still seem a poor motive even for the dwindling number of heirs. It is only when Sir Clinton realises that the air strike has unearthed the potentially lucrative presence of vast deposits of

tin Tin is a chemical element; it has symbol Sn () and atomic number 50. A silvery-colored metal, tin is soft enough to be cut with little force, and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, a bar of tin makes a sound, the ...

(now in short supply due to the loss of Malaya to

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

forces) that the reason for the killings makes sense. Matters are complicated by one of the beneficiaries, a Liberian confidence trickster who claims to have

occult The occult () is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mysti ...

powers that Sir Clinton is ultimately able to debunk.

References

Bibliography

* Barzun, Jacques & Taylor, Wendell Hertig. ''A Catalogue of Crime''. Harper & Row, 1989. * Evans, Curtis. ''Masters of the "Humdrum" Mystery: Cecil John Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, Alfred Walter Stewart and the British Detective Novel, 1920-1961''. McFarland, 2014. * Hubin, Allen J. ''Crime Fiction, 1749-1980: A Comprehensive Bibliography''. Garland Publishing, 1984. *Murphy, Bruce F. ''The Encyclopedia of Murder and Mystery''. Springer, 1999. * Reilly, John M. ''Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers''. Springer, 2015. 1944 British novels British mystery novels Novels by Alfred Walter Stewart Novels set in England British detective novels British crime novels Hodder & Stoughton books Little, Brown and Company books Novels set during World War II {{1940s-mystery-novel-stub