'A fine craftsman' Ellery Queen
When a Swiss professor is found dead on a California university campus only a few feet away from the home of a student he was visiting, Dr Ashwin, a professor of Sanskrit, and Martin Lamb, a graduate student, join forces to find the killer.
The dead man was struck by a blunt instrument but the weapon cannot be found. The only clue is a scrap of paper on which has been drawn an obscure symbol known as the Seven of Cavalry.
Born William Anthony Parker White in Oakland, California, Anthony Boucher (1911-1968) wrote both mystery and science fiction and was a highly regarded literary critic and editor. He also wrote scripts for radio, spoke numerous languages fluently, and was the first translator into English of Jorge Luis Borges. A founding member of the Mystery Writers of America, he was one of the first winners of an Edgar Award for his mystery reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle. He also wrote short stories for, among others, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Black Mask and Ed McBain's Mystery Book. His iconic status was cemented when, in 1970, Bouchercon (the Anthony Boucher Memorial World Mystery Convention) was set up in his honour.