Before the Fact

by Francis Iles Narrated by Deryn Edwards

Overview

'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 Francis 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. Unsettling and gripping for its incisive portrayal of human emotion and fears, this experimental classic of crime fiction was the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's film Suspicion, but remains an arresting literary read today.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"The mother of all stories about women who unwittingly marry charming sociopaths and gradually awaken to their peril."—Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

2025-05-30
Iles’ pioneering psychological thriller, filmed by Alfred Hitchcock asSuspicion, returns from its first publication in 1932 to confront its myriad offspring.

When she first catches sight of Johnnie Aysgarth, youngest son of an impoverished aristocrat, Lina McLaidlaw is instantly swept off her feet by his playful insouciance and his exclusive focus on her to the neglect of everyone else on the scene. After a whirlwind courtship, they wed and enjoy a blissful honeymoon. It’s not till the couple returns to Dellfield, the spacious home Johnnie’s rented in Dorchester, that Lina, who stands to inherit £50,000 on her father’s death, learns that Johnnie doesn’t have a penny of his own or any idea how to make a living. She seeks to stem his endless cycle of borrowing greater and greater sums from anyone who’ll lend them by persuading him to take a job managing the estate of his distant relative Captain Melbeck, but then learns that he’s continued to gamble despite his promises to stop. In fact, Lina slowly comes to realize, she can’t believe a single word from her alluring, solicitous husband’s mouth. The pseudonymous Anthony Berkeley Cox (1893–1971) paces the rising false notes with surgical precision, revealing Johnnie as a liar, a cheater, a gambler, a thief, and ultimately a murderer. The most telling development here is not of Johnnie, who smilingly declines to change, but of Lina, who evolves from his target to his victim to his accomplice. Modern readers may well shudder at her willful obliviousness, but fans who recognize the persistence of this formula to the present will acknowledge the power of this indispensable template for three generations of brides-in-distress that followed.

The mother of all stories about women who unwittingly marry charming sociopaths and gradually awaken to their peril.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940192239940
Publisher:	Soundings, Limited
Publication date:	07/01/2024
Series:	British Library Crime Classics
Edition description:	Unabridged

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