Livingston, I Presume?

THE MONK OF HAMBLETON.
By Armstrong Livingston (1885 - ?).
International Fiction Library.
1928. 318 pages.
Online HERE and HERE.

Talk about a forgotten author! There's virtually nothing available on the WorldWideWeb about Armstrong Livingston except that he did turn his hand to detective fiction and sometimes got noticed, albeit often unfavorably, for it. See TomCat's review below for more.

[Full review] . . . Another small-town mystery is The Monk of Hambleton, which leads you, rather like "The Greene Murder" to two equally probable culprits—in this case to two confessions of guilt for the same crime. The way the actual criminal is disclosed in a single sentence on the last page is remarkable. — Gilbert Seldes, "An Outline of Mystery," THE BOOKMAN (September 1928; Jump To page 101, top right)

[Review excerpts] . . . The best way to describe the story is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843) as perceived by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with a pinch of Scooby Doo. There's even a young, female investigative operative, named Kitty Doyle, who plays the Miss Climpson to Peter Creighton's Lord Peter Wimsey in the endgame of the story.  . . .

. . . Livingston has a nice, pleasant, albeit dated, writing style suiting the backdrop of a now bygone era, but the plotting was still (partly) in a previous era – making it not all that difficult to anticipate the eventual ending for the seasoned mystery reader. The normally clichéd ending of the dying murderer/confession was handled better that I could've hoped for. So there's that.  . . . — TomCat, BENEATH THE STAINS OF TIME (October 26, 2014)

A few other books and reviews where available:

~ THE MYSTERY OF THE TWIN RUBIES (1923).

~ THE JUJU MAN (1925) with Thomas H. Griffiths. Reviews HERE [Jump To page 500, top left] and HERE.

The authors of this weird and gory yarn seem to have taken it for granted that the perpetual slaughter of minor characters should constitute enough action to grip and satisfy the reader's appetite for adventure fiction.  . . .

~ ON THE RIGHT WRISTS (1925).

~ LIGHT-FINGERED LADIES (1927).

~ THE GUILTY ACCUSER (1928).

~ THE DOUBLECROSS (1929).

~ THE MONSTER IN THE POOL (1929). Review HERE [Jump To page 223, center of page].

. . . It is all quite light-hearted and giddy, with a highly irresponsible ending . . .

~ THE MURDER TRAP (1930).

~ TRACKLESS DEATH (1930).

~ IN COLD BLOOD (1931).

~ MURDER IS EASY (1936). Review HERE.

To which of six potential heirs will Bellamy Batchelier leave his millions? That is his problem. Before he solves it, his own disappearance in puzzling circumstances falls to the police of a New England fishing village. "If this doesn't please you, you are very hard to please indeed." - Dorothy L. Sayers. — GOODREADS description

. . . You'll yawn.

~ NIGHT OF CRIME (1938). Review HERE.

. . . Mediocre.

~ MAGIC FOR MURDER (1945).

~ THE MURDERED AND THE MISSING (1947). Review HERE.

. . . Satisfactory.

Category: Detective fiction