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Arthur Crook #45
The Visitor
A blackmailer - murdered. And the suspect in fear for her life...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
"It was odd, seeing how undistinguished he looked, that I knew from the first minute that he spelt danger."
That was Margaret Ross' instant reaction to the mysterious visitor who called at her flat early one morning, to threaten ruin to her 19-year-old son. Margaret thought Alfred Samson was a nasty-looking little man, and she was quite right. He was on nasty business: blackmail. Her son, Philip, not quite twenty and a student at Oxton University, had been having fun and games with Mr. Samson's wife, Annette. Margaret knew she had to pay Samson off, or else her beloved son would go to jail for forgery. . .
So begins Anthony Gilbert's new novel, intriguing, complex and loaded with suspense. A demand for blackmail leads on to murder, then Margaret finds herself in the position of giving the police information that she believes will clear the accused man. . .only to implicate her son.
The night she rang the bell at Samson's sinister house on Margate Street. There was no answer. Slowly she entered the house and went up the stairs. Samson was waiting at his desk -- murdered. She found the incriminating letters and the cheque and escaped with them. But she had been seen.
Even more of a tiger than most mothers, Margaret is prepared to do anything to rescue her son. But when Alfred Samson turned up dead, she found herself in more trouble than ever. Surrounded by dangers unaware from which direction her enemy will strike next, she herself becomes a victim and is only saved at the eleventh hour by the intervention of Arthur Crook, the unconventional lawyer whose boast is that he never loses a client. It's a situation made to order for Crook, for as they say about him, "Arthur Crook can bend the evidence to suit the individual curve." As dangers gather like wasps around Margaret, it will take all Crook's genius to get to her in time.
Here Anthony Gilbert, one of England's most distinguished crime novelists, writes at top form, exact characterization adding conviction to a powerful and exciting story!
'Amusing and zestful, with an unexpected and exciting climax' ~Daily Telegraph
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
"It was odd, seeing how undistinguished he looked, that I knew from the first minute that he spelt danger."
That was Margaret Ross' instant reaction to the mysterious visitor who called at her flat early one morning, to threaten ruin to her 19-year-old son. Margaret thought Alfred Samson was a nasty-looking little man, and she was quite right. He was on nasty business: blackmail. Her son, Philip, not quite twenty and a student at Oxton University, had been having fun and games with Mr. Samson's wife, Annette. Margaret knew she had to pay Samson off, or else her beloved son would go to jail for forgery. . .
So begins Anthony Gilbert's new novel, intriguing, complex and loaded with suspense. A demand for blackmail leads on to murder, then Margaret finds herself in the position of giving the police information that she believes will clear the accused man. . .only to implicate her son.
The night she rang the bell at Samson's sinister house on Margate Street. There was no answer. Slowly she entered the house and went up the stairs. Samson was waiting at his desk -- murdered. She found the incriminating letters and the cheque and escaped with them. But she had been seen.
Even more of a tiger than most mothers, Margaret is prepared to do anything to rescue her son. But when Alfred Samson turned up dead, she found herself in more trouble than ever. Surrounded by dangers unaware from which direction her enemy will strike next, she herself becomes a victim and is only saved at the eleventh hour by the intervention of Arthur Crook, the unconventional lawyer whose boast is that he never loses a client. It's a situation made to order for Crook, for as they say about him, "Arthur Crook can bend the evidence to suit the individual curve." As dangers gather like wasps around Margaret, it will take all Crook's genius to get to her in time.
Here Anthony Gilbert, one of England's most distinguished crime novelists, writes at top form, exact characterization adding conviction to a powerful and exciting story!
'Amusing and zestful, with an unexpected and exciting climax' ~Daily Telegraph
182 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1967
2 people are currently reading
12 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Gilbert
134 books38 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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