Courtier to Death

Unquestionably a most intelligent author. Gifts of ingenuity, style and character drawing * SUNDAY TIMES *
Anthony Gilbert shared with other successful crime writers a combination of writing talent and clever plotting skills necessary to make it in detective fiction’s Golden Age … Along with Agatha Christie [he] had a talent to deceive * mysteryfile.com *
No author is more skilled at making a good story seem brilliant * SUNDAY EXPRESS *
If there is one author whose books need to be widely available, it is Gilbert * Inkquilletc.blogspot *
Fast, light, likeable * NEW YORK TIMES *
The suspense is relentless and the ending is killer. You’re sure to be stunned by one or more twists in the gasp inducing finale * prettysinister.blogspot *
The plot is knife-edge tension all the way * BELFAST TELEGRAPH *
The usual gusto, racy prose, good plotting and up-to-the-minute social observation * SUNDAY TIMES *
Anthony Gilbert’s novels show the unsensational type of detective story at its best * DAILY TELEGRAPH *

Anthony Gilbert was the pen name of Lucy Beatrice Malleson. Born in London, she spent all her life there, and her affection for the city is clear from the strong sense of character and place in evidence in her work. She published 69 crime novels, 51 of which featured her best known character, Arthur Crook, a vulgar London lawyer totally (and deliberately) unlike the aristocratic detectives, such as Lord Peter Wimsey, who dominated the mystery field at the time. She also wrote more than 25 radio plays, which were broadcast in Great Britain and overseas. 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 was an early member of the British Detection Club, which, along with Dorothy L. Sayers, she prevented from disintegrating during World War II. Malleson published her autobiography, Three-a-Penny, in 1940, and wrote numerous short stories, which were published in several anthologies and in such periodicals as Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and The Saint. The short story ‘You Can’t Hang Twice’ received a Queens award in 1946. She never married, and evidence of her feminism is elegantly expressed in much of her work.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.