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Summary

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY
Rediscover Gladys Mitchell – one of the 'Big Three' female crime fiction writers alongside Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.

One of Sir Bohun Chantrey's great passions in life is the stories of Sherlock Holmes. To celebrate the great man's anniversary, he throws a party at which the guests are instructed to come as characters from the detective stories. But several of the guests are more interested in Sir Bohun's money, and when he announces that he is to marry a poor governess, things take a turn for the worse, not least when the Hound of the Baskervilles turns up...

Fortunately the incomparable detective Mrs Bradley and her secretary Laura are amongst the guests and ready to investigate the deepening mystery.

Opinionated, unconventional, unafraid... If you like Poirot and Miss Marple, you’ll love Mrs Bradley.

Reviews

This is one to be put aside for a relaxing Christmas read...the mark of a Mitchell mystery is to lead us into familiar territory there to shatter illusions of predictability...try guessing the culprit by all means but there are high odds against getting it right
Barry Turner, Daily Mail

About the author

Gladys Mitchell

Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell – or ‘The Great Gladys’ as Philip Larkin called her – was born in 1901, in Cowley in Oxfordshire. She graduated in history from University College London and in 1921 began her long career as a teacher. Her hobbies included architecture and writing poetry. She studied the works of Sigmund Freud and her interest in witchcraft was encouraged by her friend, the detective novelist Helen Simpson.

Her first novel, Speedy Death, was published in 1929 and introduced readers to Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, the detective heroine of a further sixty six crime novels. She wrote at least one novel a year throughout her career and was an early member of the Detection Club, alongside Agatha Christie, G.K Chesterton and Dorothy Sayers. In 1961 she retired from teaching and, from her home in Dorset, continued to write, receiving the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger in 1976. Gladys Mitchell died in 1983.

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