Part of Series
Touring Scotland’s western Highlands is meant to be a romantic holiday for Ian and Catherine Menzies. But the winds shift when the limping, haunted figure of Hector Loudoun appears. The man begs for an audience and then regales them with a marvelous tale: after Hector refused another man’s offer to purchase his property, he was cursed by a terrible fall and tormented by a ghostly voice calling out for justice. The story seems unfounded, until Hector’s housekeeper suddenly goes missing...and the body of a stranger—stabbed in the back—is discovered by Ian’s sister and her traveling companion Mrs. Beatrice Lestrange Bradley. The psychoanalyst detective Mrs. Bradley is no stranger to murder. She sets out to interview Hector, but instead unearths a whole new set of mysteries...and motives. In this peculiar tale of clan lore and buried secrets, the indomitable Mrs. Bradley unravels a multifaceted mystery—piece by satisfying piece.
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.
