Vernon Loder (1881–1938)

Death By The Gaff is written by Vernon Loder and is a golden age mystery that was originally published in 1932. The mystery revolves around a fly fishing resort on the banks of a river in North Wales. A very unlikeable guest’s body is found trapped in the river with strange wounds in his throat.
These wounds appear to have been made by a gaff, which is a huge hook attached to a long pole and is used to pull in large salmon. Just about everyone who came near this murdered man disliked him so there were plenty of suspects and the author made good use of this device making it difficult to decide which one of many was the guilty one.

I loved the setting of this remote hotel and the descriptions of the various pools along the river. Having grown up with a fly fishing father, I enjoyed all the references to that sport. Two of the guests played at being detective, and while they were likeable and intelligent, it was the slow, steady detecting done by the police inspector in charge of the case that eventually brought about the actual solution.

Overall I found Death By The Gaff to be a clever and fun read as it offers a little more than being just a simple “whodunnit”.… (meer)