Murder in Fiji

Title: Murder in Fiji
Genre: Suspense Fiction
Author: John W. Vandercook (1902-1963)
Illustrator: Unknown
Publisher: Crime Club, Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York.
Series: “A Case in the Career of Bertram Lynch, P.C.B.”
Year: 1936 (first edition)
Pages: 308
Format: Hardcover, missing dust jacket.
Provenance: Pencil notations inside back cover: “Eb 200 100”
Dedication: “To Sylvester Maxwell Lambert M.D. In gratitude: and in recollection of those days in the Viti Levu hills”
Opening Sentence: “Reading theses in medieval history, though it is a part of my professional duty, is rarely my delight.”
Random Passage: “Lynch was deadly white. All color seemed to have drained from his lips and face. But I could see he was steady as stone.”
Notes: In Murder in Fiji Bertram Lynch, diplomat in the Permanent Central Board of the League of Nations, journeys to Fiji to investigate a string of bizarre murders which threaten that country’s political and social structures. From what I can gather, author Vandercook was a radio commentator and news writer who did mysteries on the side. His most enduring book was an earlier entry in the series, Murder in Trinidad (1933), which was adapted to film no less than three times.