Tom Brown's Body

Tom Brown's Body

Summary

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY
Rediscover Gladys Mitchell – one of the 'Big Three' female crime fiction writers alongside Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.

The matchless detective and psychoanalyst Mrs Bradley is visiting the picturesque village of Spey in search of a local witch when Gerald Conway, a junior master at Spey College, is found murdered. Despised by both pupils and peers, there is no shortage of suspects but can the redoubtable Mrs Bradley use tact, wit and just a touch of black magic to make the boys and their masters divulge the truth?

Opinionated, unconventional, unafraid... If you like Poirot and Miss Marple, you’ll love Mrs Bradley.

Reviews

  • Mrs Lestrange Bradley...is by far the best and most vital English female detective
    Observer

About the author

Gladys Mitchell

Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell – or ‘The Great Gladys’ as Philip Larkin called her – was born in 1901, in Cowley in Oxfordshire. She graduated in history from University College London and in 1921 began her long career as a teacher. Her hobbies included architecture and writing poetry. She studied the works of Sigmund Freud and her interest in witchcraft was encouraged by her friend, the detective novelist Helen Simpson.

Her first novel, Speedy Death, was published in 1929 and introduced readers to Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, the detective heroine of a further sixty six crime novels. She wrote at least one novel a year throughout her career and was an early member of the Detection Club, alongside Agatha Christie, G.K Chesterton and Dorothy Sayers. In 1961 she retired from teaching and, from her home in Dorset, continued to write, receiving the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger in 1976. Gladys Mitchell died in 1983.
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