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A crime that isn't reported; a mother who's threatened... Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club One of Arthur Crook's favorite maxims was "Beware of the invisible witness, the man or woman whose presence can't be guarded against because it can't be foreseen." This never was more true than in this baffling case of death and kidnapping. Just such a witness was Sara Drew when with her 4-year-old son, Mike, she saw the two racing cars go flying down the hill to virtually inevitable tragedy and violent death. She is the only witness to the particularly unpleasant car accident in which an elderly lady and her dog are killed. Nervous of going to the scene of the accident with a child, she reluctantly goes home. There she meets one of the drivers, and is appalled that he has no intention of reporting the incident. And he also threatens to hurt her son if she goes to the police. This is a story of kidnapping—of a young widowed mother driven to desperation by thugs who have killed and will kill again. In her loneliness, and fright Sara finds confidence and encouragement in the cozy and uproarious person of the lawyer/detective Arthur Crook. With her son Mike kidnapped, Detective Crook takes over the case and counters the wiles of desperate criminals . . . Anthony Gilbert tells an exciting story with wit and conviction; Arthur Crook bounds cheerfully through it, redressing wrongs. And the hardships and hazards of a bitterly cold English winter provide a realistic setting. 'No author is more skilled at making a good story seem brilliant' Sunday Express
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.
