Leo Bruce

Leo Bruce is a pseudonym for Rupert Croft-Cooke (1903-1979). Under this name, Bruce wrote several mystery novels. He created two series, one featuring Sergeant Beef, a British police officer, and a second in which Carolus Deene, senior history master at the fictional Queen's School, Newminster, is an amateur detective.

Most Leo Bruce books are now out of print. Croft-Cooke also wrote a large number of books, plays, short stories, and other work under his own name.

Sergeant Beef series

• Case for Three Detectives (1936) ISBN 0-89733-033-1

An example of the locked room type of murder mystery, this book spoofs three famous fictional detectives, Lord Peter Wimsey, as Sir Simon Plimsoll, Hercule Poirot as Monsieur Amer Picon, and Father Brown, under the name of Monsignor Smith.

The remaining books in the series are out of print.

• Case Without a Corpse (1937)
• Case With Four Clowns (1939)
• Case With No Conclusion (1939)
• Case With Ropes and Rings (1940)
• Case For Sergeant Beef (1947)
• Neck and Neck (1951)
• Cold Blood (1952)

Short Stories

• Beef for Christmas (1957) (can be found in Silent Nights - Christmas Mysteries Edited by Martin Edwards - first published in Tatler and Bystander)
• Clue in the Mustard (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• Holiday Task (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike) (also found in Resorting to Murder - Holiday Mysteries Edited by Martin Edwards)
• Murder in Miniature (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• The Doctor's Wife (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• Beef and the Spider (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• Summons to Death (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• The Chicken and the Egg (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• On the Spot (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike) (Inspector Simler story)
• Blunt Instrument (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• I, Said the Sparrow (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• A Piece of Paper (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• Letter of the Law (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike) (Abel Ziccary story)
• A Glass of Sherry (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• The Scene of the Crime (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• Murder in Reverse (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• Woman in the Taxi (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• The None-Fifty-Five (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• Person or Persons (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• The Wrong Moment (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• A Box of Capsules (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• Blind Witness (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• Deceased Wife's Sister (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• Riverside Night (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• Rufus and the Murderer (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• The Marsh Light (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• A Stiff Drink (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• Into Thin Air (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)
• A Case for the Files (found in Leo Bruce Murder in Miniature The Short Stories Edited by B.A. Pike)

Carolus Deene series

• At Death’s Door (1955)
• Dead for a Ducat (1956)
• Death of a Cold (1956)
• Dead Man’s Shoes (1958)
• A Louse for the Hangman (1958)
• Our Jubilee Is Death (1959)
• Furious Old Women (1960)
• Jack on the Gallows Tree (1960)
• Die All, Die Merrily (1961)
• A Bone and a Hank of Hair (1961)
• Nothing Like Blood (1962)
• Such Is Death (1963)
• Death in Albert Park (1964)
• Death at Hallows End (1965) (reprinted in paperback by Academy Chicago Publishers, May 2008)
• Death on the Black Sands (1966)
• Death of a Commuter (1967)
• Death at St. Asprey’s School (1967)
• Death on Romney Marsh (1968)
• Death with Blue Ribbon (1969)
• Death on Allhallowe’en (1970)
• Death by the Lake (1971)
• Death in the Middle Watch (1974)
• Death of a Bovver Boy (1974)

References

• Murder Will Out: The Detective in Fiction, T. J. Binyon (Oxford, 1989) ISBN 0-19-219223-X pp. 54,123