The Bellamy Trial

by Frances Noyes Hart

Overview

Originally published in 1927, Frances Noyes Hart's The Bellamy Trial is one of the first legal thrillers. While it shows the prejudices and attitudes (all women are girls, unless they are elderly, for example) of the time, the central plot and premise hold up well. There are blustering lawyers, surprise witnesses, reversals, betting on the jury's verdict, and all the trimmings. Readers who like to take a dip into the early works of a genre will get a kick out of this fast read... (Annie)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798888302279
Publisher:	Bibliotech Press
Publication date:	01/09/2023
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Frances Noyes Hart (1890-1943) was an American writer whose stories were published in Scribner’s, The Saturday Evening Post, where The Bellamy Trial was first serialized, and The Ladies’ Home Journal. The daughter of Frank Brett Noyes, founder of the Associated Press, Hart was educated in American, Italian, and French schools before serving in WWI as a canteen worker for the YMCA and as a translator for the Naval Intelligence Bureau. After returning home, she wrote six novels, numerous short stories, and a non-fiction memoir about the war.

Hank Phillippi Ryan is the bestselling author of eleven novels, including psychological thrillers Trust Me and The Murder List. A past president of national Sisters in Crime, Ryan’s suspense fiction has won the Mary Higgins Clark Award, five Agatha Awards, and numerous other accolades. Alongside her work as an author, Ryan also has a successful career as an investigative reporter at Boston’s WHDH-TV, where her ground-breaking journalism has been celebrated with 36 EMMY Awards and 14 Edward R. Murrow Awards.

Editorial Reviews

09/16/2019

Devotees of classic courtroom thrillers like Witness for the Prosecution will be enthralled by this reissue in the American Mystery Classics series of a seminal legal drama first published in 1927. Hart (1890–1943) effectively employs a chorus to supplement the proceedings: a veteran male reporter and a rookie female journalist, both unnamed, whose commentary keeps the detailed questioning of witnesses and legal arguments during a sensational murder trial in Bellechester, N.Y., from becoming dry. Stephen Bellamy and Susan Ives are charged with the fatal stabbing of Stephen’s wife, Mimi, a cause célèbre that the male reporter cynically describes as the latest “crime of the century.” According to the prosecution, their motive was fear that Mimi would run off with Susan’s husband, with whom Mimi was once in love. Hart does a good job playing with expectations by first presenting the prosecution’s case against Stephen and Susan before testimony and cross-examination suggest an alternative explanation for Mimi’s murder. Perry Mason fans will rejoice. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"An ingenious and spirited job, which has clever characterization, strong suspense and real comic relief. The mystery is capitally created and sustained."

New York Evening Post

"An enthralling story."

New York Times

"Masterful . . . add this fine reissue of The Bellamy Trial to your reading list. It’s remarkably written, it’s carefully crafted, and it’s more than worthy of your time and interest."

New York Journal of Books

2019-08-19
A pair of Long Island society types stand trial for upper-crust murder in this distinguished reprint first published in 1927.

Hank Phillippi Ryan, whose introduction pronounces this one of the very first legal thrillers, notes that Hart (1890-1943) drew freely on accounts of the 1922 Hall-Mills murder, the most notorious of her day. But the trial of Stephen Bellamy and Susan Ives for the fatal stabbing of Bellamy's wife would have been sensational on its own. Mimi Dawson had been romantically involved with both self-made stockbroker Patrick Ives and equally eligible Elliot Farwell, and Pat had eloped with Sue Thorne, Elliot's former girlfriend whose wealthy father disinherited her in disgust, only a few days before Mimi married Stephen. The combustible mixture of once and future lovers, linking Pat and Mimi once more despite their marriages to others, boils over when Mimi is found stabbed to death in the gardener's cottage on the grounds of Orchards, the old Thorne estate. The evidence, which places both the accused at the scene around the time of the murder, suggests that Sue Ives stabbed her rival to death with the active encouragement of the victim's husband. But the eight days of the trial bring out an abundance of new evidence, partly at the hands of wily prosecutor Daniel Farr, partly through the dogged research and cross-examination of defense counsel Dudley Lambert, an old family friend of the Thornes who at first seems utterly overmatched. The pace is stately, the oratory ceremonious, and the climax unnecessarily self-serious. But if the tale is unmemorable as a whodunit, it has never been excelled by its long line of progeny as a courtroom drama. Hardly a single witness testifies without some surprising development, and the mystery is admirably calculated to provide successively more revealing peeks at the passions that seethe beneath its decorous surface.

A must-read for nostalgia buffs, this seminal tale of legal intrigue holds up remarkably well even for casual fans.

Kirkus Reviews