The Hodgkiss Mysteries

Hodgkiss doesn't miss a trick. Four adventures of that cranky, obnoxious, insufferable but remarkably observant and astute senior citizen.

Hodgkiss and his friend Pat Strong visit a friend in a rented house adjacent to a council car park. When a bottle flies over the high wall surrounding the car park Hodgkiss wonders if was just someone skylarking or something more sinister. Later when the owner of the house has moved back in another bottle arrives with fatal results. An accident? Hodgkiss thinks not and he makes a acute observation that points to murder.

A distant relative in a remote country town appeals to Esme for help in finding the family fortune. Hodgkiss, who doesn't like the sound of this proposition, insists on accompanying his daughter. They have no sooner arrive when a body is found in a locked room at the farmhouse. Hodgkiss at once suspects murder although all the family can account for their whereabouts at the time. But Hodgkiss still shows how a most ingenious murder was planned and executed.

Hodgkiss hears of some unusual activities at a huge local storage complex. Then when Inspector Donald Burke tells him that there has been a massive drug theft Hodgkiss decides that one of the hundreds of units in the complex would be a good place to hide the drugs ... and a body.

Charles Conder arranges for his mistress to drive the body of his wife, who he has just murdered, to the car park at a railway station He takes infinite precautions to see that she is not detected on route. But the plan is so complicated that it is doomed to go wrong. Hodgkiss and Sergeant Sanderson, with some clever deductions and a bit of luck, soon unpick the plot.