Bloody Instructions - Woods, Sara

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Résumé :
Miss Bell found him, said Antony. That was about fifteen minutes after I got there. She let out a yell that brought us all running. He'd been stabbed in the back Who had the effrontery to fatally stab James Winter, a mild and highly respectable London solicitor, as he was inoffensively taking tea in his office? The possibilities are plentiful, but police suspicion lands on a temperamental Shakespearean actor, Joseph Dowling, whose estranged wife the old man had been representing in her divorce action. The larger-than-life star of London's latest hit production of Macbeth, Dowling not only had a motive for murder, he had a dagger to draw as well. These actors! Now it may well be the last act for Dowling in his newest role-criminal defendant-unless brilliant barrister-sleuth Antony Maitland and his famed courtroom performer uncle, Sir Nicholas Harding, can put the spotlight on the real killer in this, Sara Woods' highly-praised debut detective novel. This gripping courtroom drama from 1962 features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans. This is just the sort of book I enjoy - a good detective story, with human characters and told with freshness and an amusing good humor. - Francis Iles, author of Malice Aforethought...

Sommaire:
Sara Woods, the pen name of Eileen Mary Lana Hutton Bowen Judd, was bornin 1916 in Bradford, Yorkshire. She was the daughter of Francis Burton Hutton, a garage proprietor and Sara Roberta Woods, the daughter of a buyer for an engineering firm.In 1946 she married electrical engineer Anthony George Bowen Judd. Following a dozen years of farming in rural Yorkshire, the couple moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1958, where Sara began her prolific mystery writing career. She became well-known for her detective series featuring canny barrister Antony Maitland - a character inspired by her beloved older brother, Antony Woods Hutton, a promising young solicitor who was tragically killed in 1941 at the age of 33 when as a Royal Air Force pilot in the Second World War his plane was shot down during action in Egypt.Sara Woods' detective novels were celebrated for their intricate plots and the authenticity of their courtroom settings and they garnered a longtime, loyal readership. Sara passed away at the age of 69 on November 6, 1985, leaving behind her a rich legacy of four dozen Antony Maitland mysteries....