The Affair of the Dead Stranger, first published in 1944, is a murder mystery featuring amateur sleuth Huntoon Rogers, an English professor from California, and is set, like many of Knight's books, in an exotic location. In this case, the setting is Taxco, Mexico, an important silver-mining and jewelry-making center. Clifford Reynolds Knight (1886-1963) authored twenty-four crime novels between 1937 and 1952, beginning with the Red Badge prize winning The Affair of the Scarlet Crab. Eighteen of Knight's books feature Huntoon Rogers, each title beginning with "The Affair of..."