Die in the Dark

Detective Arthur Crook is browsing the newspaper on the morning of 14 April 1947, when an advertisement jumps out at him.

'Rest and Refreshment: to a lady seeking the above and able to pay for it, is offered a unique opportunity for complete seclusion in a delightful country house'

Disastrously, Mrs Emily Watson has read the same ad, and soon Crook becomes embroiled in the disappearance of a rich widow preyed upon by her unscrupulous nephew. And, for once, the super sleuth almost comes a cropper . . .

'The ebullient Crook at his boisterous best' Country Life

Anthony Gilbert was the pen name of Lucy Beatrice Malleson. Born in London, she spent all her life there, and her affection for the city is clear from the strong sense of character and place in evidence in her work. She published 69 crime novels, 51 of which featured her best known character, Arthur Crook, a vulgar London lawyer totally (and deliberately) unlike the aristocratic detectives, such as Lord Peter Wimsey, who dominated the mystery field at the time. She also wrote more than 25 radio plays, which were broadcast in Great Britain and overseas. 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 was an early member of the British Detection Club, which, along with Dorothy L. Sayers, she prevented from disintegrating during World War II. Malleson published her autobiography, Three-a-Penny, in 1940, and wrote numerous short stories, which were published in several anthologies and in such periodicals as Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and The Saint. The short story 'You Can't Hang Twice' received a Queens award in 1946. She never married, and evidence of her feminism is elegantly expressed in much of her work.