Sergeant Beef was a burly, red-faced, complacent ex-village-policeman with a huge dark ginger moustache. He inspired very little confidence - in fact he himself was one of the few people who believed in his genius - but, in his own blunt and logical way, he was a remarkable efficient detective. As a private investigator he joined forces with the police over the difficult Shoulter murder case, and faced problems which, he insisted, would have been far too formidable for the smart amateurs of detective fiction, such as M. Amer Picon and Lord Simon Plimsoll. For Case for Sergeant Beef, while full of its own excitements and complications, enjoys a number of friendly and lightly veiled digs at the plots and characters of other famous writers.