Part of Series
The victims were predictable – the murderer was not… Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club It all starts with a personal ad in a newspaper. A middle-aged man is looking for a spouse, and a little too much emphasis is placed on her being without a family. The experienced lawyer and detective Arthur Crook can immediately work out that the man has no real intentions towards his future wife, but does he have it right? Would you marry the man you loved if he were suspected of shooting his first wife? That was Helen Wayland's problem. Blanch French had died of a gunshot wound, and a jury could not decide if it was accident, suicide or murder. Sour, selfish and worth several millions, Mrs. French was just the kind of woman you’d expect to be murdered. And so, in due course, she was. Young, beautiful, capable nurse Helen Wayland hears from a friend that people are saying unkind things about her behind her back. She made her choice, but two years later a second woman died in mysterious circumstances, and once again Paul French's name was involved. Paul's housekeeper, Mrs. Hoggett was the next to die – another murder predicted by all who, unfortunately, knew her well. Since there was no shortage of suspects, it was small wonder the killer eluded the law. And then a lovely young woman came forth with a story of bigamy and blackmail so bizarre it had to be true. All that was needed for proof was yet another corpse… It was thanks to Arthur Crook, that intrepid legal champion of lost causes, that the astonishing truth about both deaths was finally established and the innocent vindicated. Arthur Crook, a charming, unorthodox and brawny British lawyer and detective, cares a lot about his clients and less about formalities. He is the main character in the majority of Anthony Gilbert's crime novels, where he creatively solves murder mysteries and intrigues in 1900s England. The exceptional standards of entertainment and integrity for which Anthony Gilbert is famous are fully maintained when Death Takes a Wife.
Author
Anthony Gilbert was the pen name of Lucy Malleson an English crime writer. She also wrote non-genre fiction as Anne Meredith , under which name she also published one crime novel. She also wrote an autobiography under the Meredith name, Three-a-Penny (1940). Her parents wanted her to be a schoolteacher but she was determined to become a writer. Her first mystery novel followed a visit to the theatre when she saw The Cat and the Canary then, Tragedy at Freyne, featuring Scott Egerton who later appeared in 10 novels, was published in 1927. She adopted the pseudonym Anthony Gilbert to publish detective novels which achieved great success and made her a name in British detective literature, although many of her readers had always believed that they were reading a male author. She went on to publish 69 crime novels, 51 of which featured her best known character, Arthur Crook. She also wrote more than 25 radio plays, which were broadcast in Great Britain and overseas. Crook is a vulgar London lawyer totally (and deliberately) unlike the aristocratic detectives who dominated the mystery field when Gilbert introduced him, such as Lord Peter Wimsey. Instead of dispassionately analyzing a case, he usually enters it after seemingly damning evidence has built up against his client, then conducts a no-holds-barred investigation of doubtful ethicality to clear him or her. The first Crook novel, Murder by Experts, was published in 1936 and was immediately popular. The last Crook novel, A Nice Little Killing, was published in 1974. Her thriller The Woman in Red (1941) was broadcast in the United States by CBS and made into a film in 1945 under the title My Name is Julia Ross. She never married, and evidence of her feminism is elegantly expressed in much of her work.
