A Deadly Marriage

by Roderic Jeffries

It was common knowledge that David and Catalina Plesence's marriage was on the verge of collapse. And nearly everyone knew David was seeing a lot of an attractive widow living nearby. David longed for a divorce, but Catalina had other plans. She adamantly refused to contemplate the though she was prepared to obtain a judicial separation — provided the alimony was large enough. When a man died after having had a drink in their house, the police establish that it was the work of poison and start looking to Catalina and David for answers. Catalina finally sees her chance to exact terrible revenge against David. She claims that the poison had been meant for her and that David had tried to kill her… But who is the real murderer? And will Catalina’s allegation be held as truth? Either way, their marriage is surely over… A Deadly Marriage is a classic murder mystery from a master of the genre. Praise for Roderic Jeffries 'A first-rate whodunit turning on the resourcefulness of a country gentleman who exploits the process of the law to delay its action. Author on the top of his legal and social form.' Francis Goff, Sunday Telegraph ‘Tension builds up and there are two exciting court scenes. Roderic Jeffries established a very high reputation for himself in the field of the legal thriller with Exhibit No. Thirteen and Dead Against the Lawyers. Once again he has used a little known quirk of the law, and woven round it an enthralling story of immense intricacy.’  Maurice Richardson, Observer ‘The resulting legal intricacies make fascinating reading.' Hester Makeig, Spectator 'First-class, smoothly told, fine court scenes and sketches of lawyers entirely absorbing.' John Clarke, Evening Standard ‘The most ingenious of Mr. Jeffries's exercises in legal trickery.' Julian Symons, Sunday Times 'Good court scenes; very competent.' Peter Dickinson, Punch '...is for the mystery story connoisseur and particularly the man who can appreciate this ingenious exercise in legal trickery.' Police World Roderic Jeffries was born in London in 1926 and was educated at Harrow View House Preparatory School and the Department of Navigation, University of Southampton. In 1943 Roderic Jeffries joined the New Zealand Shipping Company as an apprentice and sailed to Australia and New Zealand, but later transferred to the Union Castle Company in order to visit a different part of the world. He returned to England in 1949 where he was admitted to the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn and read for the Bar at the same time as he began to write. He was called to the Bar in 1953, and after one year's pupilage practiced law for a few terms during which time there to write full time. His first book, a sea story for juveniles, was published in 1950.

Genres: Mystery

188 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1995

About the author

aka Peter Alding, Jeffrey Ashford, Roderic Graeme, Graham Hastings.
Son of Graham Montague Jeffries

Roderic Jeffries was born in London in 1926 and was educated at Harrow View House Preparatory School and the Department of Navigation, University of Southampton.

In 1943 he joined the New Zealand Shipping Company as an apprentice and sailed to Australia and New Zealand, but later transferred to the the Union Castle Company in order to visit a different part of the world.

He returned to England in 1949 where he was admitted to the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn and read for the Bar at the same time as he began to write. He was called to the Bar in 1953, and after one year's pupilage practiced law for a few terms during which time there to write full time.

His first book, a sea story for juveniles, was published in 1950.
His books have been published in many different countries and have been adapted for film, television, and radio.

He lived for a time in the country in a 17th century farmhouse, almost, but not quite overlooking Romney Marsh before he and his wife moved to Mallorca. They have two children.

Reviews

[Melissa Borsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. I enjoyed this fast-paced mystery. Catalina and David have been unhappily married for awhile and David has found another love. Catalina refuses to give David a divorce but is desperately seeking revenge for her husbands infidelity. Catalina figures if David is convicted of murder than he can't possibly be with his lover anymore. Tension builds as more and more evidence is pointed towards David. Will he spend his life in prison for a murder he didn't commit? Good read.

[Ronnie Cramer · Rating 2 out of 5]

A not-terribly-interesting-or-believable UK mystery originally published in 1967. The author repeats a lot of the same points throughout and seems to struggle with 'business' for his characters; using the phrase 'he lit a cigarette' more than twenty times.

[☘Tara Sheehan☘ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book frustrated me quite a bit. It has a great skeleton in that the framework for an interesting plot is here, there are some complex characters with intriguing motivations, a relatively good pace and it all accumulates to create the perfect conclusion for this story.

However….

The writing isn’t very good, it becomes predictable making it hard to retain interest, you’re able to figure out the murderer fairly quickly in the first part of the book, the dialogue sounds stilted and almost childlike, page and story breaks aren’t very well delineated so sometimes it gets confusing as completely different plot points just run into each other and even though the conclusion is good for the story line it ends abruptly.

I felt this had so much potential but ultimately failed on pulling it together. I think the author would have pulled this off better if he had a partner that could do the actual writing while Jeffries came up with an outline kind of like what James Patterson does.

[P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book. There's the delusional looney on her own private path to destruction, anxious to take others down with her, and the placid [and not especially interesting] regular folks to whom you wish the best, and that they'd tried a bit harder. However, the really great part of this book is Gretnor's masterful cross-examination, which saves the hero and dooms the looney. I suspect it would be interesting even for those to whom the artificiality of courtrooms is a bit of a bore.

[Sheridan Miles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad book, a little uneventful at first but I was drawn into it and by the end was quite happy.. a little predictable in places but also some great surprises, I enjoyed this story.

[Bettye McKee · Rating 4 out of 5]

One heck of a story

I read this book based on the brief description (which is how we always must choose our books) and the reviews.

This book was so much better than I expected. David Plesence met Catalina on a cruise ship. She was on the lookout for a rich man to marry, but David was a businessman and failed to live up to her expectations.

Then David met and fell in love with Patricia and Catalina swore bitter revenge. She refused to give him a divorce so that he could not marry Patricia, then she managed to get him arrested and tried for a double homicide.

I deducted one star because of the numerous errors although, in the author's defense, many of them probably occurred when the book was converted to an ebook. Even so, that doesn't make it any easier to read.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murder novel

I liked the story. It was entertaining and had many twists and turns. What I didn't like was the way it was written. One paragraph was the police talking amongst themselves and then the next sentence was the wife speaking to her husband. I think there should have been a new chapter when this happened as it was very confusing who was speaking to who.