# The Losing Game

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{{Short description|1941 novel}}
{{infobox book
| name =The Losing Game
| title_orig = 
| translator = 
| image =File:The Losing Game.jpg
| caption = 
| author = [Freeman Wills Crofts](/source/Freeman_Wills_Crofts)
| illustrator = 
| cover_artist = 
| country = [United Kingdom](/source/United_Kingdom)
| language = English
| series = [Inspector French](/source/Inspector_French)
| genre = Mystery 
| publisher = [Hodder and Stoughton](/source/Hodder_and_Stoughton) (UK) <br /> [Dodd Mead](/source/Dodd_Mead) (US)
| release_date = 1941
| english_release_date =
| media_type = Print 
| pages = 
| isbn = 
| preceded_by = [James Tarrant, Adventurer](/source/James_Tarrant%2C_Adventurer)
| followed_by = [Fear Comes to Chalfont](/source/Fear_Comes_to_Chalfont)
}}
'''''The Losing Game''''' is a 1941 [detective novel](/source/detective_novel) by the Anglo-Irish writer [Freeman Wills Crofts](/source/Freeman_Wills_Crofts).<ref>Evans p.179</ref> It is the twenty second in his series of novels featuring the [Golden Age](/source/Golden_Age_of_Detective_Fiction) detective [Inspector French](/source/Inspector_French) of [Scotland Yard](/source/Scotland_Yard). It was published in the United States by [Dodd, Mead](/source/Dodd%2C_Mead) under the [alternative title](/source/alternative_title) '''''A Losing Game'''''.<ref>Reilly p.397</ref>

==Synopsis==
At his [cottage](/source/cottage) outside a town thirty miles west of [London](/source/London), a [moneylender](/source/moneylender) with a successful sideline in [blackmail](/source/blackmail) is murdered and his property set on fire. Police trawl through his various victims in order to hunt the killer down. Suspicion falls in particular on a [detective novel](/source/detective_novel)ist who was in debt to the dead man and he is arrested. His sister calls in the assistance of Inspector French who she had once met, and he unofficially makes some inquiries. This raises enough doubts for his superiors to agree to his taking on the case. With the novelist on remand on a charge for murder, French with assistance from the man's sister, is able to discover that the real killer's motive sprung from another crime committed many years before in [Australia](/source/Australia).

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* Evans, Curtis. ''Masters of the "Humdrum" Mystery: Cecil John Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, Alfred Walter Stewart and the British Detective Novel, 1920–1961''. McFarland, 2014.
* Herbert, Rosemary. ''Whodunit?: A Who's Who in Crime & Mystery Writing''. Oxford University Press, 2003.
* Reilly, John M. ''Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers''. Springer, 2015.

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Losing Game}}
Category:1941 British novels
Category:1941 English-language novels
Category:Novels by Freeman Wills Crofts
Category:British mystery novels
Category:British thriller novels
Category:Hodder & Stoughton books
Category:Novels set in London
Category:Irish mystery novels
Category:Irish crime novels
Category:Mystery novels set in England
Category:1940s mystery novels

{{1940s-mystery-novel-stub}}

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [The Losing Game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Losing_Game) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Losing_Game?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.