Spotted Hemlock

Spotted Hemlock

Summary

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

Could the dead body of a young student at a women’s agricultural college be connected to the appearance of a ghostly horseman patrolling the campus grounds? The witchlike Mrs Bradley, incomparable psychoanalyst and detective, is intrigued. Soon she uncovers secret love-affairs and petty thefts, and follows the trail to Scotland, Ireland and the south of Italy in order to root out the truth.

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

Reviews

  • A delightful caper
    Chicago Tribune

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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