| Checkmate to Murder | |
| Author: | E.C.R. Lorac |
| Cover Artist: | J.Z. Atkinson |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | Chief Inspector MacDonald |
| Genre: | Detective |
| Publisher: | Collins Crime Club Arcadia House (US) |
| Release Date: | 1944 |
| Media Type: | |
| Preceded By: | Fell Murder |
Checkmate to Murder is a 1944 detective novel by E.C.R. Lorac, the pen name of the British writer Edith Caroline Rivett.[1] It was the twenty fifth in her long-running series featuring Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard.[2] Originally published by Collins Crime Club, it was reissued in 2020 by the British Library Publishing as part of a group of crime novels from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
On a foggy night during the London Blitz, a special constable arrests a young Canadian soldier standing over the dead body of his elderly great uncle in a rundown house in Hampstead. The only other possible suspects are the inhabitants of the art studio next door, a celebrated painter, his sister and their various guests. However as MacDonald and his assistant Inspector Reeves begin to investigate a number of other possible suspects and motives emerge, including the special constable himself.