Inspector Joseph French is a fictional British police detective created by Irish author

Freeman Wills Crofts Freeman Wills Crofts FRSA (1 June 1879 – 11 April 1957) was an Irish engineer and mystery author, remembered best for the character of Inspector Joseph French. A railway engineer by training, Crofts introduced railway themes into many of h ...

. French was a prominent detective from the

Golden Age of Detective Fiction The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of classic murder mystery novels of similar patterns and styles, predominantly in the 1920s and 1930s. While the Golden Age proper is usually taken to refer to works from that period, this type of f ...

, appearing in twenty-nine novels and a number of short stories between 1924 and 1957. The character was introduced in the 1924 novel '' Inspector French's Greatest Case'', where he investigates a fatal

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robbery Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person o ...

Hatton Garden Hatton Garden is a street and commercial zone in the Holborn district of the London Borough of Camden, abutting the narrow precinct of Saffron Hill which then abuts the City of London. It takes its name from Sir Christopher Hatton, a favourit ...

. The series relied largely on puzzle mysteries.

Overview

French was a prominent detective from the

, appearing in twenty nine novels and a number of short stories between 1924 and 1957. French is a

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 ...

detective, whose methodical technique breaks down complex

alibi An alibi (, from the Latin, '' alibī'', meaning "somewhere else") is a statement by a person under suspicion in a crime that they were in a different place when the offence was committed. During a police investigation, all suspects are usually a ...

s. Over the course of the series, he is promoted to Chief Inspector and the later to Superintendent. His manner is courteous, he is happily married and has no major problems in his private life.

Novels

* '' Inspector French's Greatest Case'' (1924) * '' The Cheyne Mystery'' (1926) * '' The Starvel Tragedy'' (1927) * '' The Sea Mystery'' (1928) * '' The Box Office Murders'' (1929) * '' Sir John Magill's Last Journey'' (1930) * '' Mystery in the Channel'' (1931) * '' Sudden Death'' (1932) * '' Death on the Way'' (1932) * '' The Hog's Back Mystery'' (1933) * '' The 12:30 from Croydon'' (1934) * '' Mystery on Southampton Water'' (1934) * '' Crime at Guildford'' (1935) * '' The Loss of the Jane Vosper'' (1936) * '' Man Overboard!'' (1936) * ''

Found Floating ''Found Floating'' is a 1937 detective novel by the Irish writer Freeman Wills Crofts. It is the sixteenth in his series of novels featuring Inspector French, a Scotland Yard detective of the Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Gree ...

'' (1937) * '' The End of Andrew Harrison'' (1938) * '' Antidote to Venom'' (1938) * '' Fatal Venture'' (1939) * '' Golden Ashes'' (1940) * '' James Tarrant, Adventurer'' (1941) * '' The Losing Game'' (1941) * '' Fear Comes to Chalfont'' (1942) * '' The Affair at Little Wokeham'' (1943) * '' Enemy Unseen'' (1945) * '' Death of a Train'' (1946) * '' Silence for the Murderer'' (1949) * '' French Strikes Oil'' (1951) * '' Anything to Declare?'' (1957)

Adaptations

BBC Radio

Several adaptations of the French stories were produced for BBC Radio over the years: * 1943-1945 saw a series for the General Forces Programme entitled "Chief Inspector French's Cases", starring

Milton Rosmer Milton Rosmer (4 November 1881 – 7 December 1971) was a British actor, film director and screenwriter. He made his screen debut in ''The Mystery of a Hansom Cab'' (1915) and continued to act in theatre, film and television until 1956. In ...

, and featuring original scripts written by Crofts himself. * Adaptations for the

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in the 1950s included ''Mr. Pemberton's Commission'' with

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, ''The Greuze'' with

Norman Mitchell Norman Mitchell Driver (27 August 1918 – 19 March 2001), known professionally as Norman Mitchell, was an English television, stage and film actor. Born in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, his father was a mining engineer and his mother ...

, and ''East Wind'' with Frank Tickle. * In 1984, the short story "The Yang Chi Jade" was adapted for

Radio Four BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasting ...

Saturday Night Theatre __NOTOC__ ''Saturday Night Theatre'' was a long-running radio drama strand on the BBC Home Service and its successor, BBC Radio 4. Launched in April 1943 the strand showcased feature-length, middlebrow single plays on Saturday evenings for mor ...

with William Eedle as French, whilst a 1987 dramatisation of ''Inspector French and the Starvel Tragedy'' starred Edward de Souza as the Inspector.

Proposed television series

In July 2019, Brendan Foley was announced to adapt the Inspector French novels as a television series, with independent production company Free@LastTV on board to produce. There has been no word on the series since then.

References

{{Reflist

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. * James, Russell. ''Great British Fictional Detectives''. Remember When, 2009. * Reilly, John M. ''Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers''. Springer, 2015. French, Joseph Novel series French, Joseph French, Joseph French, Joseph