I have a place in my heart for Anthony Gilbert's Arthur Crook mysteries.
At the English institute where I studied, we had a well stocked library and a dedicated librarian, a very helpful old lady. I wanted to read "real" books in English, that is to say, not simplified student versions, but was not ready for the most difficult books. She introduced me to Anthony Gilbert's mysteries; the first I read was
Something Nasty in the Woodshed.
From Wikipedia
Quote:
|
[Lucy Beatrice Malleson aka Anthony Gilbert] published 69 crime novels, 51 of which featured her best-known character, Arthur Crook. 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 ethics to clear him or her. ...The first Crook novel was published in 1936 and was immediately popular. The last Crook novel was published in 1974.
|