He Should Have Died Hereafter

He Should Have Died Hereafter is a 1958 detective novel by the British writer Cyril Hare. It is the fifth and last in his series featuring amateur detective Francis Pettigrew, a retired barrister. It also features an appearance of Inspector Mallet, a former officer of Scotland Yard who had last appeared in the author's With a Bare Bodkin. It was published in the United States by MacMillan under the alternative title Untimely Death.

Synopsis

While holidaying with his wife in Exmoor, Pettigrew comes across a body in a beauty spot he had last visited in his childhood. When he returns with members of the local stag hunt, the corpse has disappeared. A couple of days later the body reappears at another location nearby and is identified as a ne'er-do-well who is the estranged husband of the woman in whose house they are staying. Mallet has retired to the district but is hired to launch a private investigation by cousins of the deceased who believe the death may have been fraudulently concealed in order so that his wife and children should benefit from a large inheritance from his wealthy uncle. The matter ends in a convoluted case before the Court of Chancery but Pettigrew is still set on solving the murder that the local Devon police have failed to do.