7 /10 1 Votes7
Language English Media type Print Originally published 1924 Adaptations The Rasp (1932) Genres Whodunit, Mystery | 3.5/5 Goodreads Publication date 1924 OCLC 10207126 Country United Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Followed by The White Crow (1928, the next Gethryn novel) Mystery books Trent's Last Case, The Poisoned Chocolat, The Viaduct Murder, The House of the Arrow, The Leavenworth Case | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Rasp is a whodunit mystery novel by Philip MacDonald. It was published in 1924 and introduces his series character, detective Colonel Anthony Gethryn. It is set in a country house in rural England.
Contents
Plot summary
Anthony Gethryn, ex-secret service agent, is an occasional "special correspondent" for a weekly newspaper and is assigned to cover the story when a cabinet minister, John Hoode, is found murdered in the library at his country house, battered to death with a wood-rasp. Gethryn recalls his acquaintance with a member of the household and is thus invited to investigate the crime as a kind of "friend of the family". It soon seems as though everyone concerned has a cast-iron alibi for the time of the crime, but Gethryn comes up with an imaginative way for the murderer to have accomplished the deed and established an alibi, and reveals the murderer.
Literary significance & criticism
Anthony Gethryn is an early example of the amateur detective, the idea of which was soon to become popular in detective fiction. The focus on the breaking of an elaborate alibi is similar to the work of Freeman Wills Crofts, MacDonald's contemporary. "The story is the conventional body-in-the-study, with a fair amount of obvious detection. ... The killer's fakery is plain from the start. Despite all this, it has several times been declared "a classic" and "epochmaking" by students of the genre."
Film
The story was made into a film with a screenplay by Philip MacDonald which was directed by Michael Powell in 1932. It starred Claude Horton as Gethryn but is now missing, believed lost. The film is one of Powell's many quota quickies. MacDonald worked again with Powell on Rynox (1932).