'The Sand-walker ' Fergus Hume (1859 - 1932 )
Short horror story -England 1896 Ferguson Wright Hume (Fergus Hume) was born in, Powick, Worcestershire, in 1859, and emigrated with his family to New Zealand aged three. Hume remained there and trained as a barrister, qualifying in 1885, then left for Melbourne in 1886 to become a barrister's clerk and unsuccessful playwright. His first novel The Mystery of the Hansom Cab , was self published in 1886 and started selling well. Hume sold all the rights to the book, including to the British and American markets, and lost out when it became a bestseller. Detective fiction was still in its infancy. The Mystery of the Hansom Cab is sensational, with a murder, disputed inheritance, a family secret that desperately needs to be suppressed, courtroom drama, suicide, prostitution, alcoholism, portrayal of slum dwelling. And an unpredictable story line with a series of plot twists. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was inspired