Blind Corner

On his way back to England from an extended holiday in France, the young Richard Chandos stops his car on the side of the road for some lunch and a postprandial nap. He soon awakens to raised voices coming from the other side of the verge; an argument leads to a shot, and Chandos flees the scene with the dying man’s dog and a mysterious message. A couple of weeks later, Chandos and his hastily assembled team step onto the continent once more, on a mission to find a treasure trove hidden nearly two centuries ago. The only problem: a criminal gang, including the mysterious killer, isn’t far behind. Dornford Yates was already an established author of light comic short stories by the early 1920s, but decided to turn his hand to writing thrillers with Blind Corner, which would become the first book in the long-running Richard Chandos series. Following in the stylistic footsteps of Buchan’s Richard Hannay, Chandos is a well-to-do protagonist with enough funds to procure anything necessary to achieve his goals. Indeed, it sometimes seems that there’s little to distinguish him from his rivals for the treasure, apart from a sense of fair play and an unwillingness to shoot first.