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Arthur Crook #20
Muerte en el Otro Cuarto
This is the nineteenth in Gilbert's long-running series featuring the unscrupulous London solicitor Arthur Crook, one of the more unorthodox detectives of the Golden Age.
In the spring of 1946, shortly after the Second World War the domineering Lady Bate came to live at the Downs, built by the eccentric Col. Anstruther many years before. War conditions made it necessary for the Colonel's daughter to take in paying guests, but only Lady Bate knew the secret of her past life and the key to her mysterious hermit-like existence.
When, in due course, Lady Bate is found dead, a chance remark puts Arthur Crook on the right track, which he follows -- but at the risk of his life! Lady Bate's murder threatens to unravel secrets best kept buried. In Death in the Wrong Room, the talented Anthony Gilbert has written a first-rate detective story at once mystifying and well-constructed. It is a story which the legion of Crime Club readers will thoroughly enjoy.
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En la primavera de 1946, la temible Lady Bate llega a Las lomas, construida por el excéntrico Coronel Anstruther años atrás. Las secuelas de la guerra han forzado a la hija del coronel a recibir huéspedes de pago, pero sólo Lady Bate conoce el secreto de la vida pasada de la señora Anstruther y el misterio detrás de su existencia ermitaña. Cuando Lady Bate es encontrada muerta, un comentario fortuito pone al abogado Arthur Crook en el camino correcto, eso sí a costa de poner en riesgo su vida.
In the spring of 1946, shortly after the Second World War the domineering Lady Bate came to live at the Downs, built by the eccentric Col. Anstruther many years before. War conditions made it necessary for the Colonel's daughter to take in paying guests, but only Lady Bate knew the secret of her past life and the key to her mysterious hermit-like existence.
When, in due course, Lady Bate is found dead, a chance remark puts Arthur Crook on the right track, which he follows -- but at the risk of his life! Lady Bate's murder threatens to unravel secrets best kept buried. In Death in the Wrong Room, the talented Anthony Gilbert has written a first-rate detective story at once mystifying and well-constructed. It is a story which the legion of Crime Club readers will thoroughly enjoy.
***********************************************************************************
En la primavera de 1946, la temible Lady Bate llega a Las lomas, construida por el excéntrico Coronel Anstruther años atrás. Las secuelas de la guerra han forzado a la hija del coronel a recibir huéspedes de pago, pero sólo Lady Bate conoce el secreto de la vida pasada de la señora Anstruther y el misterio detrás de su existencia ermitaña. Cuando Lady Bate es encontrada muerta, un comentario fortuito pone al abogado Arthur Crook en el camino correcto, eso sí a costa de poner en riesgo su vida.
- GenresMystery
295 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1947
3 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Gilbert
140 books39 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.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 3, 2017
AC: ...here we are with a murder on the premises, and the police, poor fish, barking up the wrong tree.
JA: Fish don't bark up trees.
AC: You'd be surprised what the police can do when they get on the track, even when it's the wrong track.
~Arthur Crook; Joseph Anstruther
Anthony Gilbert is a pseudonym for Lucy Beatrice Malleson. She was a prolific British mystery writer (over 70 novels written under this pseudonym alone--she had several others) whose most famous creation is Arthur G. Crook, lawyer-detective. Her novels are known for skillful plotting, entertaining dialogue and interesting action. Arthur G. Crook is known for the fact that his clients are always innocent. Always.
Death in the Wrong Room (1947) features cold-blooded killing in the midst of post-World War II cut-backs. Years ago Colonel Anstruther's daughter, a beauty in the Botticelli style, had run away, married too-handsome-for-his-own-good ne'er-do-well, and wound up in the gambling life of the French Riviera. While she was away, the Colonel had built The Downs where he and his right-hand man Jock had lived in seclusion. When Rose Anstruther (who has re-taken her maiden name) shows up one fine day with bags and baggage, her father welcomes her home with the admonition that her husband never darken the door. She tells him that won't be difficult--Captain Fleming has taken the coward gambler's way out and shot himself. His name is never mentioned again and they settle down to a quiet life together--expanding the household by one when the Colonel's brother Joseph shows up looking for bed and board. Then the war happens.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the family's reduced circumstances force them to taken in paying guests. The Colonel absolutely insists that the boarders be kept away from the family and the family's area of the large home is made strictly out of bounds. Until Lady Bate and her young niece arrive. Lady Bate is an irascible old woman who has managed to wear out her welcome in hotels and boarding houses throughout the area. From the moment she arrives, she manages to bully the other paying guests, offend the servants, and thoroughly annoy the Anstruthers.
Lady Bate considers herself above the other paying guests and can't understand why she cannot see the lady of the house and be on an equal footing with her (much more suitable than the loud, talkative Mrs. Hunter and the deaf, eccentric Miss Twiss). One afternoon, when everyone else is out, she steals her chance and finds Rose Anstruther in her sitting room. And, how extraordinary--they've met before. From that moment, Lady Bate manages to wheedle special favors--morning tea in her room, a separate table for her and her niece, and she's working on a sitting room of her own.
Meanwhile, Caroline meets the personable Roger Carlton and begins to see a glimmer of happiness that brightens her existence as Lady Bate's gofer and dogsbody. But her aunt manages to ruin that as well--monopolizing Roger and, finally, deciding that he could be the son she never had--down to deciding she should change her will in his favor. Then--as in many a detective novel--Lady Bate dies before she can sign the new will. The police immediately fasten on the not-quite-disinherited niece as the obvious suspect. Enter Arthur Crook.
He'd prided himself that he understood the murderer's mind, now he knew that it is only when he is, in fact, out of his mind that a man is prepared to slay.
Since he takes up Caroline's case, obviously someone else must be guilty and he sets about finding out who and why. Could it be that Uncle Joseph finally decided to indulge in a real-life version of his favorite hobby--murder mysteries? Or was it Miss Twiss--she had been caught with Lady Bate's missing diamond ring. Had she stepped deeper into crime? And what about the hold Lady Bate seemed to have over Rose Anstruther...was that worth murdering for? And did Rose do the deed or did the devoted Jock decide to get rid of the problem. Crook will (quite literally) risk his life to keep his perfect record of innocent clients....
Overall, this is another fine outing by Gilbert--not quite the surprise ending that I've experienced in other books, but the story-telling is excellent, the characters are quite distinct and fully fleshed out, and the detective work of Crook is definitely up to standard. My one complaint with Gilbert's books is that she brings Crook in quite late in the game and sometimes this just doesn't work well (The Innocent Bottle is an example), but, here, the chapters introducing the characters and setting the back ground are quite necessary and very interesting so his absence isn't as keenly felt. Very entertaining. ★★★ and a half.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
JA: Fish don't bark up trees.
AC: You'd be surprised what the police can do when they get on the track, even when it's the wrong track.
~Arthur Crook; Joseph Anstruther
Anthony Gilbert is a pseudonym for Lucy Beatrice Malleson. She was a prolific British mystery writer (over 70 novels written under this pseudonym alone--she had several others) whose most famous creation is Arthur G. Crook, lawyer-detective. Her novels are known for skillful plotting, entertaining dialogue and interesting action. Arthur G. Crook is known for the fact that his clients are always innocent. Always.
Death in the Wrong Room (1947) features cold-blooded killing in the midst of post-World War II cut-backs. Years ago Colonel Anstruther's daughter, a beauty in the Botticelli style, had run away, married too-handsome-for-his-own-good ne'er-do-well, and wound up in the gambling life of the French Riviera. While she was away, the Colonel had built The Downs where he and his right-hand man Jock had lived in seclusion. When Rose Anstruther (who has re-taken her maiden name) shows up one fine day with bags and baggage, her father welcomes her home with the admonition that her husband never darken the door. She tells him that won't be difficult--Captain Fleming has taken the coward gambler's way out and shot himself. His name is never mentioned again and they settle down to a quiet life together--expanding the household by one when the Colonel's brother Joseph shows up looking for bed and board. Then the war happens.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the family's reduced circumstances force them to taken in paying guests. The Colonel absolutely insists that the boarders be kept away from the family and the family's area of the large home is made strictly out of bounds. Until Lady Bate and her young niece arrive. Lady Bate is an irascible old woman who has managed to wear out her welcome in hotels and boarding houses throughout the area. From the moment she arrives, she manages to bully the other paying guests, offend the servants, and thoroughly annoy the Anstruthers.
Lady Bate considers herself above the other paying guests and can't understand why she cannot see the lady of the house and be on an equal footing with her (much more suitable than the loud, talkative Mrs. Hunter and the deaf, eccentric Miss Twiss). One afternoon, when everyone else is out, she steals her chance and finds Rose Anstruther in her sitting room. And, how extraordinary--they've met before. From that moment, Lady Bate manages to wheedle special favors--morning tea in her room, a separate table for her and her niece, and she's working on a sitting room of her own.
Meanwhile, Caroline meets the personable Roger Carlton and begins to see a glimmer of happiness that brightens her existence as Lady Bate's gofer and dogsbody. But her aunt manages to ruin that as well--monopolizing Roger and, finally, deciding that he could be the son she never had--down to deciding she should change her will in his favor. Then--as in many a detective novel--Lady Bate dies before she can sign the new will. The police immediately fasten on the not-quite-disinherited niece as the obvious suspect. Enter Arthur Crook.
He'd prided himself that he understood the murderer's mind, now he knew that it is only when he is, in fact, out of his mind that a man is prepared to slay.
Since he takes up Caroline's case, obviously someone else must be guilty and he sets about finding out who and why. Could it be that Uncle Joseph finally decided to indulge in a real-life version of his favorite hobby--murder mysteries? Or was it Miss Twiss--she had been caught with Lady Bate's missing diamond ring. Had she stepped deeper into crime? And what about the hold Lady Bate seemed to have over Rose Anstruther...was that worth murdering for? And did Rose do the deed or did the devoted Jock decide to get rid of the problem. Crook will (quite literally) risk his life to keep his perfect record of innocent clients....
Overall, this is another fine outing by Gilbert--not quite the surprise ending that I've experienced in other books, but the story-telling is excellent, the characters are quite distinct and fully fleshed out, and the detective work of Crook is definitely up to standard. My one complaint with Gilbert's books is that she brings Crook in quite late in the game and sometimes this just doesn't work well (The Innocent Bottle is an example), but, here, the chapters introducing the characters and setting the back ground are quite necessary and very interesting so his absence isn't as keenly felt. Very entertaining. ★★★ and a half.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
September 6, 2024
Tartar old ladies. Most enjoyable. More here: https://ahotcupofpleasureagain.wordpr...
September 8, 2024
For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
December 11, 2020
La historia está entretenida en su primera parte, hasta que se comete el crimen, aparece Crook y, como en otras novelas en las que interviene, empieza a decaer. Pasajes irrelevantes y explicativos, y una conclusión, aunque la autora intenta que se mantengan varios sospechosos, que es evidente y previsible casi desde el comienzo.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews