Promotional Information

READ ALL AGATHA CHRISTIE? TRY A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERYAs the country readies for war in Europe, murder strikes much closer to home...a classic murder mystery from one of the queens of Golden Age crime fiction

About the Author

Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell - or 'The Great Gladys' as Philip Larkin called her - was born in 1901, in Cowley in Oxfordshire. She graduated in history from University College London and in 1921 began her long career as a teacher. Her hobbies included architecture and writing poetry. She studied the works of Sigmund Freud and her interest in witchcraft was encouraged by her friend, the detective novelist Helen Simpson. Her first novel, Speedy Death, was published in 1929 and introduced readers to Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, the detective heroine of a further sixty six crime novels. She wrote at least one novel a year throughout her career and was an early member of the Detection Club, alongside Agatha Christie, G.K Chesterton and Dorothy Sayers.In 1961 she retired from teaching and, from her home in Dorset, continued to write, receiving the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger in 1976. Gladys Mitchell died in 1983.

Reviews

There are many other good detective writers...there is Gladys Mitchell with her fascinating Mrs Bradley, ugly as a toad and armed with the latest up-to-date theories of psychology -- Agatha Christie * Guardian *
Crime writing's best kept secret * Scotsman *
Gladys Mitchell can always be relied upon for a packed and meaty novel, and an intelligent one at that * Guardian *
Easily the best woman detective in fiction * News Chronicle *