Cover of The Talleyrand Maxim by Joseph Smith Fletcher Ebook The Talleyrand Maxim
Ebook · Sovereign

The Talleyrand Maxim

Author
Joseph Smith Fletcher
Language
English
Length
198 pages
ISBN
9781836104742
Published
24 July 2026
Imprint
Sovereign
  • inheritance
  • hidden will
  • antiquarian bookseller
  • moral dilemma
  • greed
  • family secrets
  • deception
  • legal intrigue
  • ambition
  • classic mystery fiction

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Description

The Talleyrand Maxim follows ambitious clerk Linford Pratt, whose ordinary life changes when an antiquarian bookseller discovers the hidden will of a recently deceased magnate before dying unexpectedly. Left alone with the secret, Pratt must choose between honesty and personal gain. As greed, deception, and hidden motives collide, Joseph Smith Fletcher crafts a gripping mystery of inheritance, ambition, and moral consequence.

Author

J. S. Fletcher (1863–1935) treated the detective story as a trade, and honoured it. He produced at a Victorian-Edwardian pace that later Golden Age writers would recognise: wills, country houses, city chambers, and the long English suspicion that respectability is a costume. Fletcher is not flashy. He is reliable — which, in crime fiction, is a kind of style.

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