"A Diversion in Pre-detection"

THE CASE OF THE FOUR FRIENDS.
By J. C. Masterman.
Chivers North America.
1957. 223 pages.

J. C. Masterman is best known for his nonfiction writings about World War II espionage, but he also took time to pen two mystery novels, AN OXFORD TRAGEDY (1933) and this one from twenty-four years later.

TomCat reviews the latter at BENEATH THE STAINS OF TIME (November 7, 2013). Excerpt:

. . . I began with [this] book . . . which is subtitled "a diversion in pre-detection," and put a new spin on a then (fairly) new angle that Leo Bruce's CASE WITH FOUR CLOWNS (1939) and Pat McGerr's FOLLOW AS THE NIGHT (1951) introduced to the inverted detective story – a who-will-be-done-in-and-by-whom! A story in which you not only have to figure out the identity of the killer, before he strikes, but the name of the victim-in-waiting as well!

Another briefer review is online here.

Masterman's AN OXFORD TRAGEDY has received far more attention, with reviews in many places:
HERE.
HERE.
HERE.
HERE.
HERE.
HERE.
and HERE.

There's a Wikipedia article explaining in part why the author couldn't devote more time to mystery writing.

Category: Detective fiction