Around the breakfast table at Friars Cross sit Matthew Barry, squire of Wampish village and host, Miss Barry, his half-sister and housekeeper, his lepidopterist son Edward, and five of their guests. But this morning the usually hearty meal and cheerful conversation are somewhat subdued, for the sixth member of the party is upstairs - dead.
As you would expect in a classic whodunnit, no one in the household escapes the obligatory interview in the library and everyone at Friars Cross has a theory about the crime. That is, perhaps, with the exception of the Reverend Joseph Colchester, the narrator of the story, whose unwavering Christian spirit prevents him from contemplating evil. Who can possibly be the murderer? Colonel Lawrence is a blundering idiot; Phyllis Winter is of a frail and hysterical disposition; Mrs Fairfax and Judith Grant seem to have no motive; the Barrys all have alibis. So did the butler, who has unfortunately embraced socialism, do it? And can a private investigator make a correct deduction when he is in love with one of his suspects?
Romilly and Katherine John's superbly crafted novel repeatedly surprises the reader with the most unexpected twists and turns of plot, and at the same time perfectly evokes the delightful conventions of the Golden Age of detective fiction. Death by Request will keep even the best armchair sleuth guessing right up to the last pages.

Romilly John, poet, writer and seventh child of Augustus and Dorelia John, met Katherine, a distinguished translator, at Cambridge where he was reading engineering and she languages. They married in 1929 and Death by Request their only crime novel, was published four years later.