Deep in bucolic Wychshire something dreadful is stirring ??The disappearance of a club-footed and inquisitive youth leads to a tangle involving two instances of stolen jewels, a water-colour which may be the most remarkable picture ever painted ? and eventually to the discovery of a body in a forest with ?a smell of rotting, a smell of things decaying?. The scene abounds with the intense, the afflicted, and the darkly humorous in classic Punshon style. But the murderer himself is on a collision course with fate ? aided of course by Inspector Bobby Owen.Secrets Can?t be Kept was first published in 1944, the twentieth of the Bobby Owen mysteries, a series eventually including thirty-five novels. This edition features a new introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.?What is distinction? ? in the works of Mr. E.R. Punshon we salute it every time.? Dorothy L. Sayers?A fine example of sound detective work without sensationalism.? New York Times Book Review