Death at Four Corners

Scott Egerton #3

by Anthony Gilbert

'No author is more skilled at making a good story seem brilliant' Sunday Express

When Doctor Terence Ambrose visits Gervase Blount at Four Corners he notices the body of a man low down on a cliff near the house. His enquiries into the man's death point suspicion at several people, particularly his old friend from Balliol Gervase Blount himself.

As he delves into the past a complicated web of intrigue is slowly exposed . . .

Genres: Classics, Mystery

301 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Anthony Gilbert was the pen name of Lucy Malleson an English crime writer. She also wrote non-genre fiction as Anne Meredith , under which name she also published one crime novel. She also wrote an autobiography under the Meredith name, Three-a-Penny (1940).

Her parents wanted her to be a schoolteacher but she was determined to become a writer. Her first mystery novel followed a visit to the theatre when she saw The Cat and the Canary then, Tragedy at Freyne, featuring Scott Egerton who later appeared in 10 novels, was published in 1927.

She adopted the pseudonym Anthony Gilbert to publish detective novels which achieved great success and made her a name in British detective literature, although many of her readers had always believed that they were reading a male author. She went on to publish 69 crime novels, 51 of which featured her best known character, Arthur Crook. She also wrote more than 25 radio plays, which were broadcast in Great Britain and overseas.

Crook is a vulgar London lawyer totally (and deliberately) unlike the aristocratic detectives who dominated the mystery field when Gilbert introduced him, such as Lord Peter Wimsey.

Instead of dispassionately analyzing a case, he usually enters it after seemingly damning evidence has built up against his client, then conducts a no-holds-barred investigation of doubtful ethicality to clear him or her.

The first Crook novel, Murder by Experts, was published in 1936 and was immediately popular. The last Crook novel, A Nice Little Killing, was published in 1974.

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 never married, and evidence of her feminism is elegantly expressed in much of her work.

Reviews

[MaryJo Dawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthony Gilbert mysteries featuring Scott Edgerton are great fun, but I doubt any reader will actually figure out the answer by themselves. Edgerton has a mind that thinks completely out of the box.
Without that, there is no doubt that the truth about the death of the unsavory character found dead beneath the edge of the cliff would ever have come out.
It is great fun at the conclusion to see how the evidence, which looked so obvious, was totally misread, as it was intended to be by the mastermind of the crime.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a Tale

So many twists & turnings - almost a tortuous effort to keep track of the clues & characters. Satisfying conclusion!

[Roy Kenagy]

RK NOOK

[Cate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good, but runs to wordiness which slows it down in several places.

[Richard Brand · Rating 2 out of 5]

too much

This was a tiring story. Too many hypotheses ; too many little details; too many side roads. There were also too many detectives.