Trent's Last Case (The Mystery library)

Written in reaction against the solemnity of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Trent's Last Case, with its ingeniously twisting plot and cheerfully self-mocking hero, is the first classic of the golden age of English detective fiction.
A powerful and ruthless American capitalist is found dead in the garden of his English country house. But why is he not wearing his false teeth? Why is his young widow so relieved at his death? The artist and amateur detective Philip Trent arrives to find that there is more to the case than the solving of a puzzle: he must also accept his own fallibility, in detection and in romance. The only edition available in print, Trent's Last Case is the prototype of the modern detective novel.