What do you think?
Scott Egerton #2
The Murder of Mrs Davenport: A Golden Age Mystery
‘An absorbing story’ Times Literary Supplement‘The plot is well-conceived… the characters are well sustained’ Boston Transcript‘Perfect in constructive technique’ Yorkshire PostLucy Malleson’s second detective novel under her most popular pseudonym, Anthony Gilbert, back in print for the first time in almost a centuryAmateur sleuth Scott Egerton’s second case
At a dinner-party on the eve of his marriage to a wealthy socialite, Sir Denis Brinsley is confronted by an old flame, the beautiful Mrs Helen Davenport. Helen is being blackmailed and appeals to her ex-lover for help. In exchange she will return certain indiscreet letters Sir Denis wrote to her, the content of which would surely put an end to his advantageous marriage plans. Sir Denis refuses. Just days later Helen is found dead in her London flat, striking an inhuman pose astride her sofa. She has been strangled. Aristocratic young politician and amateur sleuth, Scott Egerton, investigates, pitching his wits against Inspector Jamieson of Scotland Yard.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anthony Gilbert was one of four pseudonyms adopted by Lucy Beatrice Malleson, the English novelist who wrote over seventy detective and crime novels between 1925 and 1972. From the age of seventeen, she wrote verse and short pieces for Punch and various literary weeklies. She also wrote as Anne Meredith, J. Kilmeny Keith and Lucy Egerton, but settled on the Anthony Gilbert pen name for her most popular literary creations, earthy, pugnacious, Cockney lawyer-detective Arthur G. Crook and aristocratic amateur sleuth, Scott Egerton. She was an early member of the prestigious Detection Club, and friends with Agatha Christie, who used her Anne Meredith pseudonym as the name for a character in Cards on the Table. Malleson valued her privacy and for many years successfully concealed her identity as the writer of the Gilbert novels, even publishing her memoir, Three-a-Penny, under a pseudonym. Recently reissued under her real name, Three-a-Penny, was selected as a BBC Radio 4 ‘Book of the Week’. She lived most of her life in London, never married, and died in 1973.
Praise for Anthony Gilbert
‘Unquestionably a most intelligent author. Gifts of ingenuity, style and character drawing’
The Sunday Times
‘Arthur Crook is a lawyer-sleuth worth meeting’
New York Times
‘His stories, like his detective, Mr Crook, have vitality with decent and credible characters and, detection-wise, fair play’
Times Literary Supplement
‘Careful in craftsmanship, scrupulously fair, more than well-written, Anthony Gilbert’s novels show the unsensational type of detective story at its best’
The Daily Telegraph
‘Anthony Gilbert is a master not only of the craft of the crime story, but also of the creation of character and atmosphere’
Irish Independent
‘Mr Gilbert writes extremely well’
E.C. Bentley
‘Anthony Gilbert has real descriptive power’
E.R. Punshon
At a dinner-party on the eve of his marriage to a wealthy socialite, Sir Denis Brinsley is confronted by an old flame, the beautiful Mrs Helen Davenport. Helen is being blackmailed and appeals to her ex-lover for help. In exchange she will return certain indiscreet letters Sir Denis wrote to her, the content of which would surely put an end to his advantageous marriage plans. Sir Denis refuses. Just days later Helen is found dead in her London flat, striking an inhuman pose astride her sofa. She has been strangled. Aristocratic young politician and amateur sleuth, Scott Egerton, investigates, pitching his wits against Inspector Jamieson of Scotland Yard.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anthony Gilbert was one of four pseudonyms adopted by Lucy Beatrice Malleson, the English novelist who wrote over seventy detective and crime novels between 1925 and 1972. From the age of seventeen, she wrote verse and short pieces for Punch and various literary weeklies. She also wrote as Anne Meredith, J. Kilmeny Keith and Lucy Egerton, but settled on the Anthony Gilbert pen name for her most popular literary creations, earthy, pugnacious, Cockney lawyer-detective Arthur G. Crook and aristocratic amateur sleuth, Scott Egerton. She was an early member of the prestigious Detection Club, and friends with Agatha Christie, who used her Anne Meredith pseudonym as the name for a character in Cards on the Table. Malleson valued her privacy and for many years successfully concealed her identity as the writer of the Gilbert novels, even publishing her memoir, Three-a-Penny, under a pseudonym. Recently reissued under her real name, Three-a-Penny, was selected as a BBC Radio 4 ‘Book of the Week’. She lived most of her life in London, never married, and died in 1973.
Praise for Anthony Gilbert
‘Unquestionably a most intelligent author. Gifts of ingenuity, style and character drawing’
The Sunday Times
‘Arthur Crook is a lawyer-sleuth worth meeting’
New York Times
‘His stories, like his detective, Mr Crook, have vitality with decent and credible characters and, detection-wise, fair play’
Times Literary Supplement
‘Careful in craftsmanship, scrupulously fair, more than well-written, Anthony Gilbert’s novels show the unsensational type of detective story at its best’
The Daily Telegraph
‘Anthony Gilbert is a master not only of the craft of the crime story, but also of the creation of character and atmosphere’
Irish Independent
‘Mr Gilbert writes extremely well’
E.C. Bentley
‘Anthony Gilbert has real descriptive power’
E.R. Punshon
249 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1928
About the author
Anthony Gilbert
150 books40 followersAnthony 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.
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
April 28, 2013
Who did murder Mrs Davenport? I ask the question because, having read the book, I am still unsure!
The tale starts off promisingly but then loses its way and becames a jumble of characters and incidents that obviously are related but it is difficult to quite ascertain how.
Blackmail is involved early on but once the murder takes place (and that is giving nothing away for it is in the title) the story meanders around in an uncomprehesible manner.
There obviously is a denouement but I think I missed it and there is some romance at the end but I didn't fully understand it so the book was a great disappointment.
Interestingly the dedication of the book reads, 'To My Mother In reposnse to whose requests for a readable detectie story this book was written' - I do hope she understood it better than I did!
The tale starts off promisingly but then loses its way and becames a jumble of characters and incidents that obviously are related but it is difficult to quite ascertain how.
Blackmail is involved early on but once the murder takes place (and that is giving nothing away for it is in the title) the story meanders around in an uncomprehesible manner.
There obviously is a denouement but I think I missed it and there is some romance at the end but I didn't fully understand it so the book was a great disappointment.
Interestingly the dedication of the book reads, 'To My Mother In reposnse to whose requests for a readable detectie story this book was written' - I do hope she understood it better than I did!
October 11, 2024
I wasn’t sure how to rate this book!
Negatives:
- The structure of it made it a little slow going to get through at times for me.
- I realllllly disliked most of the characters.
- I kept getting all the guys confused because there were so many white British men who had kind of similar names. This was probably my biggest issue.
Positives:
- The prose and dialogue are very good.
- The puzzle and its solution were really well done. I didn’t see the solution coming!
I think I might have enjoyed the book more as I went if I’d known ahead of time how the structure was going to play out. It’s like this:
- We meet the future victim and future suspects and learn about their relationships with each other to set up potential motives for the murder.
- The murder occurs
- Scotland Yard comes in and investigates the case. We follow the detective’s investigation and then he arrests a suspect.
- This is now about the halfway point of the book.
- The arrested suspect hires a famous lawyer who takes the case and begins doing his own investigation. We follow his investigation and he comes to a different conclusion about who did it.
- The lawyer partners with a private detective who begins HIS OWN investigation which we now follow. He comes to a DIFFERENT conclusion about who did it.
- The imprisoned suspect’s friend (who is not really a detective but is one of those characters who keeps getting mixed up in murder cases and solving them) then steps in and actually solves it.
I don’t remember ever reading a mystery novel with so many different detectives working separately! It’s an interesting structure but so different from the pattern I expect from these books and I think made it a little more obvious who *didn’t* do it since we could discount anyone who was treated too seriously as a suspect. That said, I actually did not figure out who it was!
Negatives:
- The structure of it made it a little slow going to get through at times for me.
- I realllllly disliked most of the characters.
- I kept getting all the guys confused because there were so many white British men who had kind of similar names. This was probably my biggest issue.
Positives:
- The prose and dialogue are very good.
- The puzzle and its solution were really well done. I didn’t see the solution coming!
I think I might have enjoyed the book more as I went if I’d known ahead of time how the structure was going to play out. It’s like this:
- We meet the future victim and future suspects and learn about their relationships with each other to set up potential motives for the murder.
- The murder occurs
- Scotland Yard comes in and investigates the case. We follow the detective’s investigation and then he arrests a suspect.
- This is now about the halfway point of the book.
- The arrested suspect hires a famous lawyer who takes the case and begins doing his own investigation. We follow his investigation and he comes to a different conclusion about who did it.
- The lawyer partners with a private detective who begins HIS OWN investigation which we now follow. He comes to a DIFFERENT conclusion about who did it.
- The imprisoned suspect’s friend (who is not really a detective but is one of those characters who keeps getting mixed up in murder cases and solving them) then steps in and actually solves it.
I don’t remember ever reading a mystery novel with so many different detectives working separately! It’s an interesting structure but so different from the pattern I expect from these books and I think made it a little more obvious who *didn’t* do it since we could discount anyone who was treated too seriously as a suspect. That said, I actually did not figure out who it was!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 16, 2026
Written in 1924. At a dinner-party on the eve of his marriage to a wealthy socialite who is somewhat aloof and apparently in love with someone else, Sir Denis Brinsley is confronted by an old flame, Mrs Helen Davenport, who is being blackmailed and appeals to her ex-lover for help. In return she will return indiscreet letters he wrote to her 14 years ago, if made public would probably put an end to his marriage plans. Sir Denis refuses and days later Helen is found strangled to dead in her London flat. Aristocratic young politician and amateur sleuth, Scott Egerton, investigates, pitching his wits against Inspector Jamieson of Scotland Yard.
Sir Denis becomes the chief suspect and with circumstantial evidence stacked against him, he hires an expensive legal team and private detectives to exonerate him. It does help that he lies about a couple of details and is generally unhelpful to his own defense. Egerton and his team sweep in to uncover the murderer. The suspects are complex and clever, and it all seems be connected to whoever was blackmailing Mrs. Davenport who is not necessarily a very sympathetic person.
Sir Denis becomes the chief suspect and with circumstantial evidence stacked against him, he hires an expensive legal team and private detectives to exonerate him. It does help that he lies about a couple of details and is generally unhelpful to his own defense. Egerton and his team sweep in to uncover the murderer. The suspects are complex and clever, and it all seems be connected to whoever was blackmailing Mrs. Davenport who is not necessarily a very sympathetic person.
April 7, 2025
"The Murder of Mrs. Davenport" ultimately proved to be a rather tedious read. While the premise held some initial promise, the pacing was frustratingly slow and plodding, making the unwieldy length of the novel feel even more pronounced. A more thorough and decisive editing process could have significantly tightened the narrative and improved the overall flow.
Unfortunately, the characters themselves lacked the spark and intrigue that often drive a compelling mystery. Unlike the memorable and multifaceted individuals crafted by the master of the genre, Agatha Christie, the inhabitants of this story felt bland and largely uninteresting. This lack of personality made it difficult to become invested in their fates or the unraveling of the central crime.
Ultimately, "The Murder of Mrs. Davenport" simply didn't possess enough personality or engaging elements to justify its considerable length. What could have been a captivating whodunit instead felt like a slow burn that never quite ignited, leaving this reader feeling underwhelmed.
Unfortunately, the characters themselves lacked the spark and intrigue that often drive a compelling mystery. Unlike the memorable and multifaceted individuals crafted by the master of the genre, Agatha Christie, the inhabitants of this story felt bland and largely uninteresting. This lack of personality made it difficult to become invested in their fates or the unraveling of the central crime.
Ultimately, "The Murder of Mrs. Davenport" simply didn't possess enough personality or engaging elements to justify its considerable length. What could have been a captivating whodunit instead felt like a slow burn that never quite ignited, leaving this reader feeling underwhelmed.
May 6, 2026
This is another one where I'm not sure if Gilbert is self aware about how annoying most of their characters are or not. But the main suspect and basically everyone around them is so irritating that you don't really care of the wrong man gets it or not because he's basically doing everything possible to put his head in the noose.
That said did appreciate that Gilbert lets you know that you absolutely should not let the cops into your master's house even if you know he didn't do it, because a cop will go and look in all the coat pockets even though he does not have a warrant.
I found the mystery more effective as a howdunnit and also they actually know who it probably is and how they did it but how to do they prove it in time dunnit. (Yeah that's definitely a genre for sure.) I did guess the culprit pretty early on but wasn't sure how they had done it.
That said did appreciate that Gilbert lets you know that you absolutely should not let the cops into your master's house even if you know he didn't do it, because a cop will go and look in all the coat pockets even though he does not have a warrant.
I found the mystery more effective as a howdunnit and also they actually know who it probably is and how they did it but how to do they prove it in time dunnit. (Yeah that's definitely a genre for sure.) I did guess the culprit pretty early on but wasn't sure how they had done it.
April 29, 2025
What a strange and twisty whodunnit! Though certainly dated, its an interesting look at the social norms of the era. The scientist is doing important Science, though we never learn what kind of science it is. Truth is obscured in an effort to protect a woman's honor, and the mere fact of a past relationship (however chaste) threatens future marriage prospects. I found it hard to be patient with some of the melodrama, but the puzzle was fun and the ending unexpected.
January 30, 2024
Mrs. Davenport is quite wicked
Lots of intrigue. This is definitely a Golden Age Mystery. Mrs. Davenport needs money for blackmail payments, so she blackmails in turn. And is murdered. Our hero is set up for the crime. The surprises start as his defense team gets to work. Fast, easy, clever read.
Lots of intrigue. This is definitely a Golden Age Mystery. Mrs. Davenport needs money for blackmail payments, so she blackmails in turn. And is murdered. Our hero is set up for the crime. The surprises start as his defense team gets to work. Fast, easy, clever read.
April 4, 2025
I liked the second half of the book a whole lot more than the first half - the set up felt a bit tedious: the murder and the net wound around a man set up to be the hero, who clearly was entrapped by a web not of his making. But in the second half the counsel for the defense gets going, and then it gets more exciting and interesting to see the unraveling of the net. In the end, I liked it.
May 5, 2024
1928 copyright, this is vintage British writing! Lots of clues leading & misleading, disguises, illicit affairs, dark secrets of the past, betrayal, danger and romance. Definitely a Golden Age Mystery. Maybe the ending was kind of corny but I cheer when the good guys triumph.
January 15, 2025
A must read for lovers of Golden Age detective mysteries!
Excellent mystery! I had difficulty putting this book down as it was a real page turner. Intend to read all of this author’s works and any others under pseudonyms.
Excellent mystery! I had difficulty putting this book down as it was a real page turner. Intend to read all of this author’s works and any others under pseudonyms.
February 3, 2024
A Lovely Read
I quite enjoyed the excellent prose, which was contributed to the intricacy of the plot. A fantastic read. A classic.
I quite enjoyed the excellent prose, which was contributed to the intricacy of the plot. A fantastic read. A classic.
May 16, 2025
I did not see that ending! Awesome!
July 24, 2026
Another good mystery with a twist.
March 26, 2024
Fun read; kept guessing until end!
January 12, 2025
Began well but the story became confused with many characters and complicated back stories. Blackmail seems to be the favorite theme for this author. I do like Scott Egerton.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews