The Bellamy Trial

Courtroom mysteries were rare in 1925 when Agatha Christie wrote “Witness for the Prosecution.” But it was “The Bellamy Trial,” published two years later, that was ultimately listed in the prestigious “Haycraft-Queen Cornerstones of Detective Fiction.”

Sue Ives and Stephen Bellamy are charged with the murder of Stephen's wife Mimi, found stabbed in an uninhabited cottage on a Long Island estate. The eight-day trial introduces a trove of witnesses (some reliable, some not); an avuncular defen...