Part of Series
‘Brilliant characterisation, coupled with a thrilling human story make this latest literary effort thoroughly enjoyable reading’ Daily Mirror‘Dr Eustace Hailey is a first-class detective’ New York TimesThe seventh of the psychologist-detective Dr Eustace Hailey series, republished for the first time in almost a centuryThis 2024 Spitfire Publishers edition includes a complete bibliography of Anthony Wynne’s crime novels. Sculptor Alaister Diarmid awoke with a start in the library of his Hampstead mansion. The sound which had awakened him was repeated – an insistent knocking on his front door. In the doorway stood a very pale Echo Wildermere, her neck streaked with blood and the sleeve of her evening frock torn. The womanising artist, Raoul Featherstone, had been stabbed in his nearby studio. The philanderer had promised to marry three women, so there were many to suspect – the jealous husband, the jealous lover, the woman scorned. Dr Eustace Hailey, consultant to Scotland Yard in diseases of the criminal mind, has his work cut out to solve this mystery. Clues that don’t add up, a body that has been stolen mysteriously away and a charred skeleton in a burned-out car… About the Author Anthony Wynne was the pen name of Robert NcNair Wilson, a Scottish physician, writer and politician. Wilson began his career as a house surgeon in his native Glasgow, developed a specialism in cardiology and was the medical correspondent of The Times for over thirty years. He wrote over fifty books, his non-fiction under his own name and his ‘Golden Age’ detective fiction as Anthony Wynne. His first crime novel, The Mystery of the Evil Eye, was published in 1925 and introduced his principle literary creation, Dr Eustace Hailey an over-weight, snuff-snorting, Harley Street psychologist-sleuth. Dr Hailey would star in twenty-seven novels and one short story collection. Wilson died in 1963. Praise for Anthony Wynne ‘A long-forgotten master’ Martin Edwards ‘Wynne excels in the solution of apparently insoluble problems’ Dorothy L. Sayers ‘He is a welcome and refreshing change from the usual run of super sleuth’ Manchester Evening News ‘Dr Hailey’s superlative work in the Cyprian Bees has earned him an honorary membership in the exclusive society, The Club of Great Modern Detectives’ Ellery Queen ‘Dr Hailey again proves his claim to a place among British master criminologists… infinitely satisfying’ New York Times ‘In the multitude of writers of mystery stories there are few more engaging than the one who chooses to call himself Anthony Wynne… Dr Hailey is an admirable creation’ New York Times
Author
Anthony Wynne is a pseudonym of Robert McNair Wilson, an English physician, who developed a specialism in cardiology after working as an assistant to Sir James Mackenzie, whose biography he subsequently wrote in 1926. He was born in Glasgow, the son of William and Helen Wilson, (née Turner), He was educated at Glasgow Academy and Glasgow University and became House Surgeon at Glasgow Western Infirmary. He was Medical Correspondent of 'The Times' from 1914–1942. He twice stood, unsuccessfully, for Parliament, as liberal candidate for the Saffron Walden district of Essex in 1922 and 1923. He wrote biographies and historical works under his own name and a single novel under the pseudonym Harry Colindale. Under Anthony Wynne, he created Eustace Hailey, a doctor in mental diseases and amateur sleuth, who featured in many of his 45 mystery novels, beginning with 'The Mystery of the Evil Eye' (1925) and ending with 'Death of a Shadow' (1950). As Anthony Wynne he also wrote short stories for a variety of magazines and newspapers. He married Winifred Paynter on 7th December 1905 in Alnwick, Northumberland, and the couple had three sons. In the September quarter of 1928 he married again, Doris May Fischel, at Hampstead and they had two sons. He died in the New Forest, Hampshire, on 29 November 1963.
