''Death in the Hopfields'' is a 1937

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 ...

John Rhode Cecil John Charles Street (3 May 1884 – 8 December 1964), also known as John Street, was a Major (rank), major in the British Army and a crime fiction novelist. He began his military career as an artillery officer and during World War I, he ...

, the

pen name A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...

of the British writer Cecil Street. It is the 25th in his long-running series of novels featuring

Lancelot Priestley Dr. Lancelot Priestley is a fictional investigator in a series of books by John Rhode. After 1924, Dr. Priestley took over from Dr. Thorndyke as the leading fictional forensic investigator in Britain and featured in 72 novels written over 40 y ...

, a

Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during wh ...

armchair detective An armchair detective is a fictional investigator who does not personally visit a crime scene or interview witnesses; instead, the detective either reads the story of the crime in a newspaper or has it recounted by another person. As the armch ...

. It was published in America by

Dodd Mead Dodd, Mead and Company was one of the pioneer publishing houses of the United States, based in New York City. Under several names, the firm operated from 1839 until 1990. History Origins In 1839, Moses Woodruff Dodd (1813–1899) and John S. ...

under the

alternative title An alternative title is a media sales device most prominently used in film distribution. Books and films are commonly released under a different title when they are screened or sold in a different country. This can vary from small change to the ...

''The Harvest Murder''.Reilly p. 1257 Caldwell Harpur gave the novel a broadly positive review in the ''

Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...

'' but felt that the murder mystery was so simple that there had really been no need for the local police to need assistance to crack the case.

Synopsis

The novel takes place in rural

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

during the hop-picking season. A

burglary Burglary, also called breaking and entering (B&E) or housebreaking, is a property crime involving the illegal entry into a building or other area without permission, typically with the intention of committing a further criminal offence. Usually ...

takes place and the complex circumstances surrounding it led to Sergeant Wragge of the local force calling in

Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's London boroughs, 32 boroughs. Its name derives from the location of the original ...

. It is only through the deductions of Priestley, however, that it is realised that his is a case of murder.

References

Bibliography

* 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. * Herbert, Rosemary. ''Whodunit?: A Who's Who in Crime & Mystery Writing''. Oxford University Press, 2003. * Reilly, John M. ''Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers''. Springer, 2015. 1937 British novels Novels by Cecil Street British crime novels British mystery novels British thriller novels British detective novels Collins Crime Club books Novels set in Kent Novels set in London {{1930s-crime-novel-stub