Murder of a Lady: A Scottish Mystery

by Anthony Wynne

Overview

Set in the Scottish Highlands, a “cunningly concocted locked-room mystery” from the Golden Age of detective fiction (Booklist, starred review).

Duchlan Castle is a gloomy, forbidding place. It is there that the body of Mary Gregor, sister of the laird of Duchlan, is found late one night. She’s been stabbed to death in her bedroom—but the room is locked from within and the windows are barred. The only tiny clue to the culprit is a silver fish’s scale, left on the floor next to Mary’s body.

Inspector Dundas is dispatched to Duchlan to investigate. The Gregor family and their servants are quick—perhaps too quick—to explain that Mary was a kind and charitable woman. Dundas uncovers a more complex truth, and the cruel character of the dead woman continues to pervade the house after her death. Soon further deaths, equally impossible, occur, and the atmosphere grows ever darker. Superstitious locals believe that fish creatures from the nearby waters are responsible—but luckily for Inspector Dundas, the gifted amateur sleuth Eustace Hailey is on the scene, and unravels a more logical solution to this most fiendish of plots . . .

Anthony Wynne wrote some of the best locked-room mysteries from the golden age of British crime fiction. This novel—one of Wynne’s finest—has never been reprinted since 1931, and will be a delightful discovery for today’s mystery fans.
 
“Those who like black-and-white films, in which ladies and gentlemen dress for dinner and everyone has frightfully good manners, are in for a treat.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“Enough complex plotting and red herrings to win a new generation of fans.” —Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781464205729
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	04/02/2024
Series:	British Library Crime Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	305
Sales rank:	7,103
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

ANTHONY WYNNE is a pseudonym of Robert McNair-Wilson (1882-1963), who wrote twenty-seven detective novels featuring Eustace Hailey, a physician and amateur sleuth. He also published on economics and history, notably a biography of Napoleon.

Editorial Reviews

Although the focus is largely on the locked-room puzzle of how the crime could have been done, there's some pretty good characterisation along the way. I particularly liked the way Wynne portrayed the women, showing them as subordinate within this society, but strong within themselves; victims sometimes, but not hysterical ones; and intelligent, worthy partners for the men they loved....Of course, there is more than one murder, and I have to admit that the second one took me totally by surprise and actually made me gasp a little. There's no real horror aspect in the book, but it nevertheless builds a great atmosphere of rather creepy tension, aided by the superstitions of the Highland folk....I enjoyed this one very much another author the British Library has managed to add to my list!

NetGalley - Leah Galbraith

Full of light humour, cranky policemen, and one smart amateur detective, this story had me wrapped around it's finger from the first page.

Carpe Libris - Matthew Barnes

This is an intriguing story with a great many undercurrents and tensions between the occupants of the castle, most of whom seem to have been scared of the murdered woman. The plot is perhaps a shade melodramatic for today's readers but the plot and the characters are very well done and the psychological motivations are realistic....There is an atmosphere almost of menace which permeates the whole book and I found myself tempted to keep looking over my shoulder in fear as I read.

Jillysheep

Golden age crime stories really are fantastic. They are fairly light reads, and yet the story will keep you engaged all the way through. This book was no exception to that rule. Full of light humour, cranky policemen, and one smart amateur detective, this story had me wrapped around it's finger from the first page....After attempted suicides, devious plot twists and some pretty horrible personalities once you get to know them, the story concludes in incredibly dramatic style and with such a twist that I truly never saw coming....Locked room mysteries are something I have not really read before, but after this, I may well try to find some more!...Star rating: 4 from 5 - chilling murders, but clever characters

NetGalley

This was a fairly dark mystery with a good setting. I found it much more an old fashioned "puzzle" but it was an enjoyable read.

Goodreads

Murder of a Lady is a mystery novel set in Scotland and originally published in 1931. It's the amateur sleuth, Hailey, that's the main character and who solved the case. It's a "locked room" mystery that could potentially be solved in several ways. There were clues, and you could guess whodunit from the clues, but some critical clues weren't discovered until nearly the end....I originally guessed something similar to what the second inspector concluded, and my solution still seems more plausible to me than the actual solution. Having worked with the murder weapon before, I think whodunit was extremely lucky that everything happened exactly right to get the desired end and that no one noticed that certain things went missing at the time of the crime....The characters were more "types" of people or pieces of a puzzle than people to sympathize with or hate. There was no sex or bad language. Overall, I still enjoyed reading the story and would recommend this mystery.

Genre Reviews

This 1931 novel, now republished as part of the British Library's Crime Classics series, is a cunningly concocted locked-room mystery, a staple of Golden Age detective fiction. Actually, it's a series of locked-room mysteries, all occurring within the gloomy, twisted corridors of Duchlan Castle in the Scottish Highlands. The laird and lady of the stately but dilapidated home are an elderly brother and sister who seem to make an effort to make their house uncomfortable and dreary. Wynne's depiction of the home and the way it mirrors the psychology of its inhabitants is worthy of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The novel shifts from mood to murder when the sister, Mary Gregor, is found dead in her room, with a knife wound near her throat. The room had been locked from the inside and the windows shut. A fish scale is found on the wound. This evidence is observed by Wynne's recurring hero, the physician and amateur sleuth Dr. Eustace Hailey, who has been called to the scene. From this point on, murder follows murder, all of them "impossible crimes." The way that Hailey uses his long experience, especially with observing human nature, is absolutely fascinating. Seeing what happens in real time from Hailey's point of view adds to the delight in watching him solve these puzzles. As Dorothy L. Sayers wrote (as quoted in the introduction to this volume): "Mr. Anthony Wynne excels in the solution of apparently insoluble problems." A great return of a great detective. (starred review)

Booklist