Created by Leo Bruce
Pseudonym of Rupert Croft-Cooke
(1903-79)
It’s difficult to figure out exactly how seriously we were supposed to take Golden Age detective SERGEANT WILLIAM BEEF.  They both follow the formula of the era’s crime fiction, and spoof it.
Initially a village copper, a “big red-faced man of forty-eight or fifty, with a straggling ginger moustache,… a look of rather beery benevolence,” and a seemingly plodding manner, this was no Great Detective. This apparently unimpressive Cockney grunt was not exactly given to flamboyant peculiarities–he didn’t play violin, muck around with cocaine, or dash around the countryside in gleaming motorcars–he was more of a beer-and-darts kinda bloke. Nor was he prone to lightning-like flashes of deductive geniu–rather, he relied on common sense and a dogged determination to solve cases.
But he did display a surprising streak of independence,at time. By Case with No Conclusion (1939), the fourth book in the series, after a string of notable successes, Beef quits the police department to become a private investigator. It was said that he never failed to crack a case.
His pleasingly complex and red herring-strewn adventures were chronicled by the Watson-like figure of the rather snooty and arrogant Lionel Townshend, a perennially grouchy and classist scribe who frequently complains about Beef’s low regard for his literary efforts, and seems to be always threatening to quit.
Beef appeared in eight cleverly plotted novels, and several short stories. Of particular interest is the book which introduced Beef, Case for Three Detectives (1936), a locked room murder mystery that affectionately lampoons three of the era’s favourite fictional detectives, Lord Peter Wimsey (as Sir Simon Plimsoll), Hercule Poirot (Monsieur Amer Picon), and Father Brown (Monsignor Smith).
The author was a scholar and playwright, as well as a prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction, under his own name. Under the pen name of Leo Bruce he wrote detective stories, most of them featuring Sergeant Beef. His other major series followed the exploits of amateur sleuth Carolus Deene, a history professor at the fictional Queen’s School in Newminster..
NOVELS
- Case for Three Detectives (1936)
- Case Without a Corpse (1937)
- Case With Four Clowns (1939)
- Case With No Conclusion (1939)
- Case With Ropes and Rings (1940)
- Case For Sergeant Beef (1947)
- Neck and Neck (1951)
- Cold Blood (1952)
SHORT STORIES
- “Murder in Miniature” (September 6, 1950, The Evening Standard)
- “I, Said the Sparrow” (October 6, 1951,The Evening Standard)
- “Beef and the Spider”
- “Blunt Instrument”
- “The Chicken and the Egg”
- “Clue in the Mustard”
- “The Doctor’s Wife”
- “Holiday Task”
- Â “A Piece of Paper”
- “Summons to Death”
