| Family Affairs | |
| Author: | John Rhode |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | Lancelot Priestley |
| Genre: | Detective |
| Publisher: | Geoffrey Bles (UK) Dodd Mead (US) |
| Release Date: | 1950 |
| Media Type: | |
| Preceded By: | The Two Graphs |
| Followed By: | The Secret Meeting |
Family Affairs is a 1950 detective novel by John Rhode, the pen name of the British writer Cecil Street.[1] [2] It is the fifty first in his long-running series of novels featuring Lancelot Priestley, a Golden Age armchair detective. It was published in America by Dodd Mead under the alternative title The Last Suspect.[3] It has been described as "probably the best post-war Rhode novel".[4]
Julian MacLaren-Ross in the Times Literary Supplement felt that "Mr. Rhode’s description of police methods is as factual as ever, but his method of murder, it might have been imagined, had long ago been considered, "together with mysterious Chinamen, inadmissible by practitioners in this genre." While Maurice Richardson in The Observer wondered "But can we, even from dear, steady, reliable Mr. Rhode, tolerate a blowpipe and curare?"
Two separate deaths in different parts of the country, at a brewery and a birthday party, are investigated by Superintendent Waghorn of Scotland Yard. With some assistance from Priestley he is able to tie the two case together.