When Sir Alban found a Minoan ring where a Minoan ring shouldn't be found, it made his reputation. It may also have cost him his life.

Inspector Richard Ringwood and his new wife Clare, a fellow Oxford graduate, enjoy reading between the lines of the obituaries in the London Times over breakfast. They were especially delighted to discover a particularly nasty notice. Sir Alban Worrall's obituary contained all the usual flattering words but it's pretty obvious that the author thought the dearly departed had bought, rather than earned, his reputation as an archaeologist.

Shortly afterwards, a young woman who had come to the dead man's defense in an impassioned letter to the Times is nearly killed in a knife attack. Ringwood's investigation moves from the streets of London to the halls of the British Museum before it eventually winds its way back to a trench in Corfu and a most surprising murderer.

The Cretan Counterfeit was first published in England in 1954 and makes its first appearance in the U.S. in this edition. Elizabeth Bowen, writing in The Tatler, said it is "to be recommended even to those who do not normally favour detective stories."