“My accidents can’t be accidental.  Very well, there’s only one thing they can be–and that’s attempted murder.”

Archy Mitfold had always loved a mystery, but he never expected to take the lead role in a thriller. Yet there was no doubt in his mind that someone was trying to kill him. First there was the narrow miss on Trumpeter’s Row, where a car accelerated straight at him. Then there were the chocolates Archy received on his birthday—with an unsigned card—that made him ill. Most recent was the sharp push in the back that almost sent him sprawling in front of an oncoming commuter train.  What does Archy know that someone is willing to kill for? And does the recent kidnapping of millionaire Sampson Vick have anything to do with his accidents? Or is all this just the sign of self-absorbed and histrionic young man? Before long, Chief Inspector Dan Pardoe is called to investigate and untangles more than one mystery in the process.

A Deed Without a Name has a well-realised and atmospheric setting during England’s “phony war” period in 1939.

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Good intellectual titillator in an adroit follow-up of Shadows Before. Innocuous Archy Mitford nosed into another murder and paid the price. Slow moving Pardoe of the Yard pulverizes all the clues -- and runs down blackmail into kidnapping into murder -- and eventually gets his man.

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In "A Deed Without a Name" Miss Dorothy Bowers tells of the murder during the black-out of a young man already the victim of mysterious attempts on his life, of the disappearance of a millionaire, and shows, with a high degree of constructive skill, how Chief Inspector Pardoe adds one faint indication to another to prove that the two crimes are closely connected.  Probably most readers will soon guess the identity of the murderer, but the clues that provide the solution to the mystery are devised and followed up with an ingenuity certain to keep those readers always interested.  Especially admirable is the way in which the murderer's name is given early in the story - for those, that is, who have the necessary insight and knowledge.