H C Bailey wrote mainly short stories featuring a medically-qualified detective called Reggie Fortune. Fortune's mannerisms and speech put him into the same class as Lord Peter Wimsey but the stories are darker, and often involve murderous obsession, police corruption, financial skulduggery, child abuse, and miscarriages of justice.
Mr Fortune Explains: A collection of stories: In this order: The picnic; The little milliner; The wedding ring; The football photograph; The rock garden; The silver cross; The bicycle lamp; The face in the picture
Mr Fortune Speaking: Contains the stories The affair of the zodiacs; The cat's milk; The pink macaw; The hazel ice; The painted pebbles; The woman in the wood; The German song and The lion fish.
Saving a Rope: On Christmas Eve the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department asks Mr. Fortune to assist in the investigation of a woman's bones found on the mountainside. The local police are unable to agree what the job is. The bones were those of a woman between twenty and thirty, have had no flesh on them for six months or a year. The time and cause of death are quite uncertain and her appearance in life indescribable, since there's no head.
