Part of Series
Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley is typically consulted for her astute detective skills, but her most recent invitation is anything but typical. She has been summoned to the home of an unknown relative, Romilly Lestrange, who asks not for her assistance in solving a crime, but for her psychiatric opinion of his wife. The young woman, according to Romilly, has developed a troubling habit of tossing items and pets off a cliff top! But Romilly’s wife, Rosamund, tells a different story—one of repression and deceit at the hands of her captor. As Dame Beatrice attempts to discern the eccentric from the criminally insane, the news of a family inheritance arises, followed by the discovery of another relative’s dead body floating in the sea. Dame Beatrice must use skills both psychoanalytic and sleuthing to uncover the truth…for never has a case been closer to home, and never has her life been in such peril. Legendary crime fiction author Gladys Mitchell sends her most notorious detective into her most perplexing case: the mystery of the Lestrange family itself.
Author
Aka Malcolm Torrie, Stephen Hockaby. Born in Cowley, Oxford, in 1901, Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell was the daughter of market gardener James Mitchell, and his wife, Annie. She was educated at Rothschild School, Brentford and Green School, Isleworth, before attending Goldsmiths College and University College, London from 1919-1921. She taught English, history and games at St Paul's School, Brentford, from 1921-26, and at St Anne's Senior Girls School, Ealing until 1939. She earned an external diploma in European history from University College in 1926, beginning to write her novels at this point. Mitchell went on to teach at a number of other schools, including the Brentford Senior Girls School (1941-50), and the Matthew Arnold School, Staines (1953-61). She retired to Corfe Mullen, Dorset in 1961, where she lived until her death in 1983. Although primarily remembered for her mystery novels, and for her detective creation, Mrs. Bradley, who featured in 66 of her novels, Mitchell also published ten children's books under her own name, historical fiction under the pseudonym Stephen Hockaby, and more detective fiction under the pseudonym Malcolm Torrie. She also wrote a great many short stories, all of which were first published in the Evening Standard. She was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger Award in 1976.
