Sequel to Murder: The Cases of Arthur Crook and Other Mysteries

Lucy Beatrice Malleson (1899–1973) wrote traditional mysteries from the 1920s through the 1970s under several pseudonyms. As Albert Gilbert, she focused on Arthur Crook, an endearing, if not prepossessing, English defense attorney (a “big, red-headed man, with eyebrows like another fellow’s moustaches and wearing a suit whose shade would hardly have disgraced a fox”). Crook, who’s often to be found at his favorite watering hole, has the gift of noticing the significance of an omitted word or a slip of the tongue, as well as when his clients are lying to him. The 18 selections in this Lost Classics reprint volume are all of exceptional quality, but the longest entry, “Give Me a Ring,” is the high point. The decision of a student nurse, Gillian Hinde, to buy a ring with a “blue stone that glowed and sparkled as if it had gathered up all the light the fog had sucked out of the streets and flung it back with an unbelievable radiance” leads to some unexpected consequences. Fans of golden age detective stories will be in heaven. [em](Oct.) [/em]