The Toff on The Farm

The award-winning John Creasey is the stupor mundi of the mystery- writing field. Incredibly prolific and always astonishingly good, he is the creator of Gideon, Inspector West and many another internationally-famous fictional sleuth. But curiously, one of Mr. Creasey’s own favorite creations is all but unknown on this side of the Atlantic. This is the Honorable Richard Rollison. “the Toff.”The Toff belongs to that great race of gifted amateurs who once dominated detective fiction—Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey and the Saint are three disparate examples— but who, in recent years, have been largely eclipsed by professional policemen. secret agents and private eyes. How much was lost when the “great detectives” gave place to lesser breeds is delightfully demonstrated in the Toff series and perhaps nowhere better than in The Toff on the Farm.Here we have a fine display of the ingredients which give the Toff stories so much of their charm: the highborn Toff, omnicompetent and equally at home in every social stratum; Jolly, his impeccable “gentleman’s gentleman” ; a variety of highly unpleasant villains; a swift succession of incidents ranging from the violent to the absurd; and even, for good measure, a wonderfully unlikely American named “Tex.” Light, deft and suspenseful. The Toff on the Farm provides a full measure of highly satisfactory entertainment.