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When the law can take a life, how much room is there for doubt?
In Only Seven Were Hanged, Stuart Martin brings crime, a trial and the question of guilt into the shadow of the gallows. Capital punishment gives the mystery its weight: the search for truth matters not only because a crime demands an answer, but because a sentence can cost a life.
The book belongs to the early twentieth century detective tradition, where clues and questions of guilt draw the reader onward. Testimony, proof and human judgment stand beside the troubling possibility that a secret can survive a trial. As you read, the question is not simply who is guilty, but whether the law reaches the truth.
What you’ll discover
- The weight of judgment Consider what a finding of guilt means when the gallows stands behind the sentence.
- Justice under question Explore the uneasy space between what a court decides and what is true.
- Secrets beyond the record Follow a mystery shaped by what people conceal and why they conceal it.
- Details worth watching Keep track of times, places and who knows what as the facts emerge.
- Doubt with deadly stakes Feel the weight that capital punishment brings to questions of proof and responsibility.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this book if you like clever murder cases told as short tales, duels between a proud judge and a sharp opponent, and mysteries about justice and mercy.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- The judge becomes the accused
- A senseless crime has another logic
- Certainty can serve a clever enemy
- Society also faces an accusation
- Death cannot deter everyone
- Another sentence fails to prevent murder
- Fear can silence the truth
- The accuser must face his methods
- Every story puts authority on trial
Who’s who
- The judgeThe proud chairman of the Clue Club, a Criminal Court judge who believes in the gallows and wants to win the debate.
- The waiterA substitute servant with long fingers and a sharp legal mind who drugs the club and puts the judge on trial.
- Ammar BaddanA Tamil merchant from Calcutta who kills an innkeeper in Surrey out of a code of family honor.
- Abe LammieA burglar called the Mole, who lives like a burrowing animal and hides his loot with cunning.
- Jeff ConnollyAn American in England who kills in jealousy, flees through the countryside and longs to be caught.
- Nathaniel GoreA vain jewel thief who plans to steal a giant diamond from a liner at sea.
- John WilliamsGoff the moneylender's manservant, an ex-convict who is trapped by a country inspector in a silent library.
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Only Seven Were Hanged
A waiter on Christmas Eve drugs a crime club and puts its judge on trial for the gallows.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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In short
What if a quiet waiter stopped a Christmas Eve dinner to put a judge on trial for the gallows? In a club for lovers of crime, a substitute waiter drugs the whiskey, and the members fall asleep while the judge stays awake.
Only Seven Were Hanged at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h 15 min3 h 25 min fast, 5 h 5 min slow
- Length
- 60,800 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A toast goes wrong at the Clue Club
The Clue Club meets on Christmas Eve in a warm room with a fire and a long table. It has barely twenty members, all drawn to crime and its clues. Their chairman is a Criminal Court judge in a scarlet robe. He calls for order by tapping a black, knobbed bludgeon dug from the mud of the Thames.
The secretary reads minutes that record a vote to keep the death penalty. Then the new waiter, a substitute for the usual man, asks to speak. He argues that a law allowing the state to kill gives every person a reason to do the same. The judge answers him in Latin phrases, amused.
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Details
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- Reading time
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- Level
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Cite this edition
Martin, Stuart. Only Seven Were Hanged. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/only-seven-were-hanged.
Martin, S. (2026). Only seven were hanged. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/only-seven-were-hanged
Martin, Stuart. Only Seven Were Hanged. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/only-seven-were-hanged.
@book{martin2026only,
author = {Martin, Stuart},
title = {Only Seven Were Hanged},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/only-seven-were-hanged}
}
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What is Only Seven Were Hanged about?
It follows a Christmas Eve meeting of a London crime club, where a waiter drugs the members and challenges the judge presiding over them to defend the death penalty by telling real cases from the club's minute book.
Who is the waiter in Only Seven Were Hanged?
He is a substitute servant who takes the place of the club's usual waiter for one evening. He gives several names during the night and knows the law and its prisons well, and his identity is part of the mystery.
What is the Clue Club?
It is a small, exclusive London club of about twenty professionals, including lawyers, doctors and novelists, who meet to discuss crime and clues. It keeps relics such as a model gallows and an ancient bludgeon in its meeting room.
The author
Stuart Martin
1986–? · British writer
British film actor, television actor and dub actor.
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