St. Peter's Finger - Hardcover

Mitchell, Gladys

3.74

318 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312001924 ISBN 13: 9780312001926

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1986

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Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley becomes involved in investigating an apparent mystery at a convent school

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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.

From Publishers Weekly:

When the death of a young heiress at an English convent school is labeled suicide, Mitchell's redoubtable Beatrice Lestrange Bradley is asked to investigate. Quiet, biddable Ursula Doyle died of gas poisoning and was discovered submerged in the bathtub of the convent guest house, an area off-limits to students. But, knowing suicide to be a grievous sin, why would such a child kill herself? The nuns hope to blame a faulty water heater, yet as Mrs. Bradley, "a hag-like pterodactyl," stumps around the convent asking questions, she's more inclined to believe that someonea games mistress with a shady past, the child's shrill auntmurdered Ursula. Her cousins stand to gain a fortune, but Mary seems too feckless for the task, and Ulrica has a burning desire to become a nun. With sharp, pungent wit and the aid of a rough-and-tumble orphan, Mrs. Bradley moves inexorably toward the solution. While all questions are not satisfactorily answered and a number of clues are deliberately misleading, this enjoyable, quintessentially English chase by a veteran author picks up a steady and stately momentum.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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