Synopsis
A night of fog, an evil night, a frightful night -- a night when anything could happen and when those safe in their houses sit, recalling similar nights, and their occasionally horrifying outcomes. On such a night even the most reassuring of houses may seem full of strange sounds, of ghostly footsteps and voices haunting the stairs and dark corners. It was on this very night that the intricate web of circumstances woven by a strange destiny began to close around Jack Barton.
The body of his beautiful, murdered wife had rotted away in a trunk in the dark cellar where he had hidden it. It was useless to say hiding the body was all he had done. It was pointless to insist he was innocent of her death. Who would believe him?
The story's atmosphere is incredibly captivating. Barton's dilemma feels so authentic that the reader senses a terrifying situation that could happen to anyone at any moment. Anthony Gilbert's novel masterfully combines a compelling detective story with a profound exploration of the human condition.
About the Author
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.
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