The Man Who Didn't Fly

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The Man Who Didn’t Fly, first published in 1955, is a highly successful novel by an author of distinction whose crime writing career came to a sudden and rather mysterious end when she was at the peak of her powers.

The central puzzle in the story is unorthodox. A plane is engulfed in fire and crashes in the Irish Sea. The wreckage can’t be found. A pilot and three men were on board and their bodies are missing. But four passengers had arranged to go on the flight and none of them can be found. So who was the man who didn’t fly, and what has happened to him?

This is such an original mystery that I don’t want to say much more about the plot, for fear of spoiling readers’ enjoyment. The novel was a strong contender for the very first Gold Dagger award for best novel of the year given by the Crime Writers’ Association (in those early days of the CWA, the award was known as the Crossed Red Herring Award). In the event, it was pipped by The Little Walls, written by Winston (Poldark) Graham, while Ngaio Marsh’s Scales of Justice and Lee Howard’s Blind Date were also shortlisted. A couple of years later, the novel was again a runner-up, this time to Charlotte Armstrong’s A Dram of Poison, for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for best novel.

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