Author: CAMDEN, John.
Title: The Hundredth Acre [subtitled: A Detective Story on the front cover].
Description: Boston, Turner 1905. Octavo, very good in bright publisher's decorated cloth blocked in black, gilt, white and green; frontispiece. Inscription of Anna Peabody on front endpaper recording her second reading of the book in March 1917 and pronouncing it "excellant". ¶ First edition? probably. Ward Lock published the English edition in the same year but it is an American book. An obscure detective thriller missed by most bibliographies for some reason*, which is a shame. Set in Paris with a cast of Americans it has everything: a mysterious poisoning; secret passages; switched identities; a suspicious detective genius; wrongly accused hero ... the works. *Hubin does list it but under 'Campden' citing only a 1906 London edition.

Keywords: literature detective fiction thrillers c20th America mystery