Robert Alfred John Walling

Robert Alfred John Walling was an English journalist and author of detective novels, who signed his works "R. A. J. Walling".

Career

Walling worked as a reporter for the newspaper Western Daily Mercury in Plymouth before working as the company's sales representative in western Cornwall. In 1891 in Plymouth he started a newspaper specialising in football. In 1893 he became editor-in-chief of the Bicycling News in Coventry. In 1894 he returned to Plymouth, where he participated in the April 1895 launch of the Western Evening Herald, Plymouth's first evening newspaper. In 1904 he became the managing director/editor of the Western Newspaper Company and joined the board of directors in 1915. In 1910 he became a magistrate in addition to his other work but resigned a few years later. He also chaired for some time Plymouth's Chamber of Commerce. In 1921 Sir Leicester Harmsworth acquired The Western Daily Mercury from the Western Newspaper Company, which before the acquisition owned the Western Daily Mercury and the Western Evening Herald. Upon the acquisition, Walling resigned as managing director/editor from the Western Newspaper Company and became editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper Western Independent, where he continued until his retirement in 1945. He remained on the board of directors of the Western Newspaper Company until his death in 1949.
In addition to his editorial and managerial work, Walling wrote news stories, travel articles, biographies, short detective novels published as newspaper serials, and, in his later years, detective novels published in book form. His detective novel The Third Degree was adapted and published in book form by Albert Pigasse in France in the collection Le Masque under the title L’Agenda de M. Lanson. Walling's first detective novel was The Dinner Party at Bardolph's, published in Paris in 1931 as Le Financier Bardolph and published by Mondadori in Milan in 1932 as Sei a tavola. In 1932 there appeared in The Fatal Five Minutes Walling's recurrent protagonist Philip Tolefree, a private detective often asked by an insurance company to solve whodunit puzzles.
The character Philip Tolefree has a friend, Scotland Yard's Inspector Pierce, who appears in many of the novels and engages in friendly competition with, and occasionally helps, Tolefree.
Will Cuppy wrote a blurb for Walling's detective novel The Corpse with the Floating Foot.

Family

In 1894 Walling married Florence Victoria Greet. Robert Victor Walling was their son.

Selected publications

Novels

''Philip Tolefree'' series

The Fatal 5 Minutes ; Follow the Blue Car or In Time for Murder Eight to Nine or Bachelor Flat Mystery The Tolliver Case or Prove it, Mr Tolefree The Cat and the Corpse or The Corpse in the Green Pyjamas The Five Suspects or Legacy of Death The Corpse in the Crimson Slippers The Crime in Cumberland Court or The Corpse with the Dirty Face Brocklebank's Adventure. Serialised in The Queenslander, 13 February to 1936Mr. Tolefree’s Reluctant Witnesses or The Corpse in the Coppice Bury Him Deeper or Marooned with Murder The Mystery of Mr. Mock or The Corpse with the Floating Foot The Coroner Doubts or The Corpse with the Blue Cravat More Than One Serpent or The Corpse with the Grimy Glove Dust in the Vault or The Corpse with the Blistered Hand They Liked Entwhistle or The Corpse with the Redheaded Friend Why Did Trethewy Die? or The Spider and the Fly By Hook or by Crook or By Hook or Crook Castle-Dinas orThe Corpse with the Eerie Eye The Doodled Asterisk or A Corpse by Any Other Name A Corpse Without a Clue or The Corpse without a ClueThe Late Unlamented

''The Corpse with the Missing Watch''

''Noel Pinson'' series

The Fatal Glove. Serialised Birmingham Daily Post, 5 October to 30 December 1917The Fourth Man. Serialised, Falkirk Herald, 1928

Other novels

The Silver Dagger. Serialised Western Mail, 21 March to 20 June 1913The Secret of the Shrine. Serialised The Barrier Miner, 12 August 1916 to 23 December 1916A Sea Dog of Devon The Third Degree. Serialised The Argus, 5 May 1923 to 28 July 1923The Gates of Happiness. Serialised The Argus, 1927The Merafield Mystery. Serialised The Argus, 18 December 1926 to 8 February 1927The Dinner-Party at Bardolph's or That Dinner at Bardolph's The Strong Room Murder at the Keyhole. Serialised in American newspapers as Death TreasureThe Man with the Squeaky Voice Stroke of One Behind the Yellow Blind or ''Murder at Midnight''

Short stories

Short story collection

''Flaunting Moll, and Other Stories''

Noel Pinson series

Miss Immington's Ring. The Week, 5 December 1930The Spook of Cornelius. Launceston Examiner, 24 December 1931Mrs Rooth's Murder. Adelaide Chronicle, 7 December 1933

Short Non-Fiction

The Western Daily Mercury. The Cornish Magazine, January 1899The Board of Green Cloth: Books and Billiards. Kalgoorlie Miner, 3 February 1904Some Cornish Characteristics. Plymouth Institution, 1909Cornwall and Brittany. The West-Country Magazine, Spring 1947

Biographies

History

''A Worthy Legacy: The Story of Plymouth''

Travel and other non-fiction

The Charm of Brittany

Publications as editor

''The Diaries of John Bright''