Dream Reprint of the Year nomination

Kate at CrossExaminingCrime has proposed a poll for readers to nominate the best out-of-print classic crime novel read in 2025 that would be perfect to reprint - and I recommend this clever mystery: Who Is Lewis Pinder? by L.P. Davies.

This ingenious mystery deserves to be better known, republished, and is ripe for filming. In the mystery genre, you won't often discover a twist as unique as this one.

A man is found unconscious on an abandoned country road, wearing a brand new 25-year-old suit, with nothing in his pockets. Barely alive with atrophied muscles and a sunken face, he has walked miles without shoes. The hospital names him Lewis Pinder for where he was found. With complete amnesia, his only identifiers are a unique clover-leaf-shaped birthmark on his shoulder and a scar behind his knee. Detective Sergeant Fenn of the CID is called in.

An old man collapses and is taken to the hospital to recover. Seeing a picture of Pinder, he is positive the man is his son, who was shot down over the channel in the war. When the picture is published in the papers, a retired college professor identifies him as his student John Tebbutt, with photographic proof and identifying birthmark description. Tebbutt was killed fighting in France in 1936. Captain Stenning, a Medical Officer with the RAF, identifies him, no mistake, as Flight Lieutenant Peter Blanshard, the scar caused by a ski accident, yet Blanshard's Spitfire was shot down in the Battle of Britain in 1940. The odds of two people having identical birthmarks are astronomical, yet George Wolton comes forward positively identifying Pinder as his brother Clifford. All stories are verified.

Martin Kirby of Special Branch, Internal Security joins the case while investigating a string of arson fires in the area, as they may be related.

And Pinder begins to remember his identity.

This crackerjack puzzle is enjoyable throughout, and the seemingly improbable plot holds together well. This would make a great film or series, with the finger pointing in turn to several people I trusted. First published in the UK as Man Out Of Nowhere, this may be harder to find but very satisfying!

Leslie Purnell Davies worked as a pharmacist, postmaster, and optometrist while writing mystery and science fiction novels (under ten pseudonyms), many with the same themes of defects or manipulation of conciousness, loss of memory or identity.

His novels The Artificial Man (1965) and Psychogeist (1966) were made into the 1968 film Project X, and The Alien (1968) was filmed as The Groundstar Conspiracy (1972).

1965 / Paperback / 175 pages

Please check out CrossExaminingCrime if you have your own nomination, by the 14th of February.