Astounding Crime on Torrington Road, PAPERBACK

“One of America’s most celebrated actors and playwrights, the great Sherlock Holmes of the stage, has at last turned his story-telling powers to the novel. The mystery addict who wants… horrors tempered by novelty and a good style will be entranced both by the originality of the plot and by Mr. Gillette’s unfolding of it… a mystery that will puzzle the most seasoned reader of detective thrillers. It is a most amazing and baffling crime.” –– from the original Harper & Brothers dustjacket edition, 1926

A lonely recluse opens his home in Boston’s Jamaica Plain to an eccentric inventor, attracting a parasitic relative and sparking an elaborate, fatal confidence game. Desperate greed and forbidden love threaten to destroy all! “I’d argue this is one of the all-time greatest noir books, and in the top 100 books of the 20th century.” –– Derrick Belanger

Belanger Books is both proud and privileged to present The Astounding Crime on Torrington Road, an early entry in noir fiction and the only novel written by William Gillette, the celebrated actor whose portrayal of Sherlock Holmes defined the character for a generation. We have restored this novel to its authentic form – “warts and all” – as Gillette originally published it, deliberately leaving in the occasional spelling or punctuation error for historical accuracy.