In Accordance with the Evidence

Whom God Hath Sundered #1

by Oliver Onions

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genres: Fiction, Crime

98 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1912

About the author

George Oliver Onions (1873–1961), who published under the name Oliver Onions, was an English writer of short stories and novels.

Oliver Onions was born in Bradford in 1873. Although he legally changed his name to George Oliver in 1918, he always published under the name Oliver Onions. Onions originally worked as a commercial artist before turning to writing, and the dust jackets of his earliest works included illustrations painted by Onions himself.

Onions was a prolific writer of short stories and novels and is best remembered today for his ghost stories, the most famous of which is probably ‘The Beckoning Fair One’, originally published in Widdershins (1911). Despite being known today chiefly for his supernatural short fiction, Onions also published more than a dozen novels in a variety of genres, including In Accordance with the Evidence (1912), The Tower of Oblivion (1921), The Hand of Kornelius Voyt (1939), The Story of Ragged Robyn (1945), and Poor Man's Tapestry (1946), which won the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize as the best work of fiction published that year.

Onions was apparently a very private individual, and though admired and well-respected in his time, he appears not to have moved in literary circles, and few personal memoirs of him survive. He spent most of his later life in Wales, where he lived with his wife, Berta Ruck (1878-1978), herself a prolific and popular novelist; they had two sons, Arthur (b. 1912) and William (b. 1913). Oliver Onions died in 1961.

Reviews

[Master Jacques · Rating 5 out of 5]

Together with Patrick Hamilton's 'Hangover Square', this wonderfully deadpan novel is top of the class in enabling us to read the story of a murder from the point of view of the murderer. That's no spoiler, as what is going to happen at the climax is flagged up very early in the story - it is not what happens, but how it happens that is the focus of attention. It's not the plot, but the people and theme which matter; and anyone who loves an intelligent, sparely-written and insightful read will love this book.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listed in Ninety Classics of Crime Fiction 1900-1975, ed. Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor. Probably the strangest piece of crime fiction I have ever read. The first page introduces an almost 300 page flashback to 12 years earlier. The narrator is a student at a business college and observes and thinks but does almost nothing. The word "crime" doesn't appear until page 225 and it takes another 35 plodding pages before the crime being contemplated is mentioned.

"Whom God Hath Sundered trilogy - Once Jeffries was a poor man. He worked for 18 shillings a week, and was in competition with seven other desperate men for a position as a junior clerk. By night he studied for a commercial certificate, his passport out of poverty. It was in the commercial college that he befriended Merridew, who was to die so young, and met the woman he loved, Evie Soames.
From the beginning we can guess what will happen. Jeffries' narration tells us how and why. "

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining mystery listening 🔰😀

Another will written British romantic thriller murder mystery adventure novel by Oliver Onions about 💘, friends, relationships, work, and money 💰 all leading to murder. I would recommend this novel to readers of British mysteries. Enjoy the adventure of reading 👓 or listening 🎶 to 👍novels 🔰😄🏰👑 2022 😠🏡

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: eventually it becomes a murder story although much of the novel is the lead-up. Do we have a perfect murder here?