Before the Fact (10th June 2024)

Description

‘Some women give birth to murderers, some go to bed with them, and some marry them. Lina Aysgarth had lived with her husband for nearly eight years before she realized that she was married to a murderer.’

Following the success of Malice Aforethought, novelist Anthony Berkeley Cox returned to his Frances Iles pen-name for another experiment in the inverted mystery. Where Malice Aforethought is a study of murder from the perpetrator’s perspective, Before the Fact is a masterful tale of the suspicions of a possible victim and her impressions of disquieting husband Johnnie.