title: Tragedy on the Line
text: # Tragedy on the Line
  
  Tragedy on the Line is a 1931 detective novel by John Rhode, the pen name of the British writer Cecil Street. It is the tenth in his long-running series of novels featuring Lancelot Priestley, a Golden Age armchair detective who works alongside the less sharp-witted Superintendent Hanslet of Scotland Yard. It was published in the United States the same year by Dodd Mead.
  
  ## Synopsis
  
  The wealthy Gervase Wickenden is found dead on the railway line near Upton Bishop's station. Decapitated it is at first assumed he was killed by a train, until a bullet is discovered in a nearby tree. Added to this was the suspicious fact that he had changed his will only two days before, and both the old and the new version are now missing.
  
  