The Bad Quarto (Imogen Quy Mystery 4) - Hardcover

Jill Paton Walsh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 034083921X ISBN 13: 9780340839218

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2007

Synopsis

The campus of St. Agatha’s College, Cambridge University, is steeped in history. One particular building, however, has a history that most would rather forget---a tower that has drawn several students to their death. Much discouraged by the authorities, it is a college tradition for students to try their luck jumping the gap between a window and a pediment---nicknamed Harding’s Folly---and the gap has recently claimed another victim, a glamorous and controversial Shakespearean scholar.
Imogen Quy (rhymes with “why”), college nurse and amateur sleuth, is surprised that such a brilliant man would take such a foolish risk. But tragic accidents do happen---or was it an accident? One undergraduate is so convinced of foul play that he takes it upon himself to confront the suspected murderer by mounting a production of the “bad quarto”---a shortened, pirated script---of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Wise, compassionate Imogen, who has been described as “sharp as needles and soft as butter,” has just the right mixture of involvement and detachment to sort out what really happened in the most literate and compelling academic mystery since Dorothy L. Sayers’s Gaudy Night. 

About this title

About the Author

Jill Paton Walsh, whose work includes the Booker Prize–nominated novel Knowledge of Angels, took up the mantle of Dorothy L. Sayers with her New York Times bestselling completion of the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery, Thrones, Dominations, followed by A Presumption of Death. She is also the author of three previous Imogen Quy mysteries: The Wyndham Case, A Piece of Justice (which was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award), and Debts of Dishonor. In 1996 she received the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. British author Walsh, praised for her seamless work completing two posthumous works by Dorothy Sayers (the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries Thrones, Dominations and A Presumption of Death), demonstrates her mastery of the modern academic mystery with her fourth whodunit (after 2006's Debts of Dishonor) featuring nurse Imogen Quy, who serves unobtrusively but effectively at the fictional St. Agatha's College of Cambridge University. Quy witnesses the final moments of John Talentire, a college fellow who topples to his death while daredevil climbing a building. The death appears to be an accident until one of Talentire's friends uses an amateur staging of Hamlet—the obscure, shorter version known as the Bad Quarto—to dramatically imply that another fellow murdered Talentire by untying his safety rope. Quy sleuths amid the vicious world of modern Shakespearean scholarship to put the pieces together in a manner that would do Harriet Vane proud. Both Sayers fans and lovers of traditional fair play should embrace this excellent read. (Apr.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 034083921X
• ISBN 13: 9780340839218
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256