When Sir Simon Chandos is found poisoned in his library, with a confession in front of him and a phial of morphia tablets on the table at his side, suicide is the obvious deduction. This is a dreadful shock to the members of the house party gathered in his picturesque old Norman country house, Freyne Abbey. But the discovery of a trivial discrepancy, by one of the guests, turns the suspicion in the direction of murder, and from that slight clue the amateur detective, Scott Egerton, unravels the web of an exceptionally brilliant and cold-blooded plot…

‘Well-written, clever and unusual’ New York-Herald TribuneLucy Malleson’s third detective novel under her most popular pseudonym, Anthony Gilbert, back in print for the first time in almost a century‘Neatly contrived’ Times Literary Supplement‘Excellent… well-worked out and logical’ Boston Transcript‘An absorbing story’ New York TimesAmateur sleuth Scott Egerton’s third case Sir Gervase and Lady Blount are hosting a weekend house party at their Four Corners country estate on the South Coast of England. While walking the nearby cliffs, one of their guests, Dr Terence Ambrose, accompanied by sometime amateur sleuth and Member of Parliament, Scott Egerton, make a horrifying discovery. On the cliff-side, high above Mermaids’ Rocks, they find a corpse. The dead man is lying face down, grotesquely spread-eagled, and dressed in a clerical collar and vest. He has been shot through the head. Clutched in his cold, dead hand is a rather large black bone button. Scotland Yard is called in and Detective Inspector James Bremner investigates, ably assisted by the astute and logical Mr Egerton. About the Author Anthony Gilbert was one of four pseudonyms adopted by Lucy Beatrice Malleson, the English novelist who wrote over seventy detective and crime novels between 1925 and 1972. From the age of seventeen, she wrote verse and short pieces for Punch and various literary weeklies. She also wrote as Anne Meredith, J. Kilmeny Keith and Lucy Egerton, but settled on the Anthony Gilbert pen name for her most popular literary creations, earthy, pugnacious, Cockney lawyer-detective Arthur G. Crook and aristocratic amateur sleuth, Scott Egerton. She was an early member of the prestigious Detection Club, and friends with Agatha Christie, who used her Anne Meredith pseudonym as the name for a character in Cards on the Table. Malleson valued her privacy and for many years successfully concealed her identity as the writer of the Gilbert novels, even publishing her memoir, Three-a-Penny, under a pseudonym. Recently reissued under her real name, Three-a-Penny, was selected as a BBC Radio 4 ‘Book of the Week’. She lived most of her life in London, never married, and died in 1973. Praise for Anthony Gilbert ‘Unquestionably a most intelligent author. Gifts of ingenuity, style and character drawing’ The Sunday Times ‘Arthur Crook is a lawyer-sleuth worth meeting’ New York Times ‘His stories, like his detective, Mr Crook, have vitality with decent and credible characters and, detection-wise, fair play’ Times Literary Supplement ‘Careful in craftsmanship, scrupulously fair, more than well-written, Anthony Gilbert’s novels show the unsensational type of detective story at its best’ The Daily Telegraph ‘Anthony Gilbert is a master not only of the craft of the crime story, but also of the creation of character and atmosphere’ Irish Independent ‘Mr Gilbert writes extremely well’ E.C. Bentley ‘Anthony Gilbert has real descriptive power’ E.R. Punshon

When Florence Penny's body is found hanging from a beam in the bedsit she has been renting, it looks to Inspector Field like a case of suicide. Soon, though, he realises murder is the motive, and the discovery of a single pink bead among the disordered bedclothes leads him to prime suspect Charles Hobart. It's now up to Scott Egerton, Hobart's prospective brother-in-law, and an astute private inquiry agent named Gordon to establish Hobart's innocence . . . 'No author is more skilled at making a good story seem brilliant' Sunday Express

The old Mademoiselle Roget is murdered under mysterious circumstances. In her youth, the woman had been a successful star of the French theater, until an illness ended her beauty. Now, the main suspect for her is her own son. Scott Egerton, a member of the House of Commons, is left in charge of the investigation of the crime; Thanks to his sagacity and his humanist convictions, he manages to impose a different look on the criminal. "My experience," Egerton said, "has shown me that nothing is more difficult than convincing the lay mind that a man is always much more than a criminal, no matter how many crimes he may have committed." \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ La anciana mademoiselle Roget es asesinada en medio de misteriosas circunstancias. En su juventud, la mujer había sido una exitosa estrella del teatro francés, hasta que una enfermedad acabó con su belleza. Ahora, el principal sospechoso es su propio hijo. Scott Egerton, un miembro de la Cámara de los Comunes, queda a cargo de la investigación del crimen; gracias a su sagacidad y a sus convicciones humanistas consigue imponer una mirada distinta sobre el delincuente. "Mi experiencia" -dijo Egerton- "me ha demostrado que nada es más difícil que convencer a la menta lega de que un hombre es siempre mucho más que un criminal, por muchos que sean los delitos que pueda haber cometido".

A murder mystery featuring Anthony Gilbert's Liberal politician-detective Scott Egerton. It began with the theatre - and ended with drugs, blackmail and a decades old crime... Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club Major John Hillier, a well-known clubman, is found dead in his flat in Upper Paulton Terrace early one morning in rather peculiar circumstances. The discovery is made by a servant, upon whom a certain amount of suspicion falls. Inspector Field traces the dead man’s movements on the previous night and learns that, after breaking up a dinner-party in a somewhat unconventional fashion, he travelled some distance to a remote suburban theatre to see a leading lady whom he cannot even identify by sight. Following up certain clues and deductions of his own, Field discovers the reason for this strange course of action, and tracing back the dead man’s history over a number of years, finds himself entangled in a nest of underworld intrigue in England and on the Continent. Drugs, blackmail and a crime many years old all play their part in an affair that, starting without sensation, attains universal attention. The congruent parts of the mystery are finally put together by Field and Scott Egerton, who, entering the case late in its development, is able to supply the final link. 'No author is more skilled at making a good story seem brilliant'~Sunday Express

Mrs Wolfe was dying - at last. Nobody seemed very sorry about it. Certainly not her relatives or legatees. Mrs Wolfe was wealthy and domineering and her periodical relapses regularly brought her heirs rushing to her bedside. The old lady derived a grim satisfaction from controlling people, but there's one last thing she is unable to control. For when Mrs Wolfe does die it is not by natural causes, but by treachery . . .