The Crime Coast - Elizabeth Gill

Paul Ashby is off to the south of France for a vacation.  Before he leaves, an old man falls down the steps outside his flat.  He brings the man in for a drink and a chat to make sure he's recovered.  When the old man, Major Kent, finds out he's off to the French Riviera, he asks him to look for his son, Adrian Kent.  Adrian is an artist who's disappeared after the his older lover is murdered.  He's a prime suspect and the fact that he's disappeared makes him look even more suspicious.

On the train, Paul shares a compartment with a lovely girl, but she runs off when he asks if she knows Kent.  Once along the coast and settled in his hotel, he begins his detective work.  He meets Benvenuto Brown and discovers that he's trying to find out who killed the woman that Adrian's suspected of killing.  He knows Adrian well and knows that he didn't do it.  He also knows the beautiful girl on the train, Adelaide Moon, also an artist.

Paul and Ben (Benvenuto) team up to find Adrian and the killer.

Elizabeth Gill only wrote three mysteries before her death from complications of surgery when she was in her early thirties.  I enjoyed this book.  I have the author's other two mysteries and am looking forward to reading those.  They were all written in the 1930s, a period I like.