142 Wellington Place

by Tim Selvadurai

Overview

The suspense in this engaging crime narrative is riveting and keeps building up until it reaches a most unexpected climax filled with excitement and pathos.

Fourteen years after the end of  World War II, former RAF fighter pilot Ben Benison gets a frantic phone call from Celia, the wife of his best friend, Don. It seems Don has been unfaithful, and the proof stands in the hallway of the couple’s home: Ada Hamilton, a young, fragile, pregnant girl who clutches love letters written in Don’s hand. Unfortunately, Don is in London, and Celia wants Ben to find out if her husband truly is a liar and a cheat.

Ben heads up to London to confront his old friend and then returns to Celia’s house to deliver the sad news that Don has admitted to the affair. But then things take a strange and sudden turn. Two police inspectors arrive minutes later and reveal that Don’s body has been found in his rooming house at 142 Wellington Place. Whether his death was by suicide or murder, they can’t—or, more accurately, won’t—say.

The authorities open up an inquest into Don’s death, and Ben accompanies the police back to London, where they interview witnesses and gather evidence. Tracking down Don’s mistress complicates things and there is a great twist when a second “Miss Hamilton” turns up. Something is certainly rotten at 142 Wellington Place.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781475995725
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	08/02/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	156
File size:	232 KB

About the Author

Tim Selvadurai was born in Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka). He was educated in his own country and in England. Selvadurai worked for twenty-five years in the United Nations with UNESCO, UNDP, and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) at its headquarters in Nairobi. He and his family then immigrated to Canada, where he now resides. This is his first novel.

Editorial Reviews

2014-10-09
First-time author Selvadurai sets a slender murder mystery in England 14 years after the end of World War II.Suicide seems a possibility when Don Murray—the adored husband of beautiful Celia and best friend of wealthy attorney and fellow former Royal Air Force fighter pilot Ben Benison—turns up dead in a room filled with gas at his intermittent London digs, 142 Wellington Place. But quite a few people might have wanted the handsome, 40-something charmer dead, and the case soon begins to look like murder. Much of the intrigue involves a young woman named Ada Hamilton, who appeared at the Murray home hours before Don's death and confronted Celia with damning evidence that her husband had been unfaithful. Ada produced love letters, written in Don's distinctive hand; announced an unwanted pregnancy resulting from her long-term liaison with Don; and was seeking a large sum of money to resolve the matter. Benison went to London to confront Don, who admitted that he had strayed with the beautiful Ada; it seems that Don had attempted to end the romance after learning that Ada carried on with other men but had become ensnared in her blackmail scheme. An inquest into Don's unexplained death, however, turns up facts that complicate the case, including the existence of a second woman claiming to be Ada Hamilton. Selvadurai confidently leads readers through a few blind alleys and left turns, tosses a red herring into the mix and ultimately reaches a satisfying conclusion. From the start, through narrator Benison's references to his "silk pyjamas," the dosing of "sleeping draughts" and his description of the popular bachelor as "rather the gay dog," the book lets readers know they are far from 21st -century America. And if the level of intrigue and the crafting of the plot in this book aren't as successful as its ability to evoke a time and place, the period language and excessive formality nonetheless provide a charm and ambiance.A well-mannered romp through an earlier era in crime.

Kirkus Reviews