The Cretan Counterfeit

Lyons, Colorado, U.S.A.: Rue Morgue Press, 2004. 1st US edition. A fine unread copy of the trade paperback. When Sir Alban found a Minoan ring where a Minoan ring shouldn't be found, it made his reputation. It may also have cost him his life. Inspector Richard Ringwood and his new wife Clare, a fellow Oxford graduate, enjoy reading between the lines of the obituaries in the London Times over breakfast. They were especially delighted to discover a particularly nasty notice. Sir Alban Worrall's obituary contained all the usual flattering words but it's pretty obvious that the author thought the dearly departed had bought, rather than earned, his reputation as an archaeologist. Shortly afterwards, a young woman who had come to the dead man's defense in an impassioned letter to the Times is nearly killed in a knife attack. Ringwood's investigation moves from the streets of London to the halls of the British Museum before it eventually winds its way back to a trench in Corfu and a most surprising murderer. The author and her husband, Austin Farrer, described by the Archbishop of Canterbury as "possibly the greatest Anglican mind of the twentieth century," lived in Oxford where Austin was a Fellow at Trinity College and later Warden of Keble College. The Farrers were intimate friends to CS. Lewis, Charles Williams, J.R.R. Tolkien. and Dorothy L. Sayers, a group collectively known as the Inklings. The Cretan Counterfeit was first published in England in 1954 and makes its first appearance in the U.S. in this edition.. First US Edition. Pictorial Wrappers. Fine. Trade Paperback.