The Devil at Saxon Wall

Oct 18, 2024 4:31 PM

Author:Gladys Mitchell

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY

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

Psychoanalyst and detective Mrs Bradley advises her highly-strung friend, Hannibal Jones, to retreat to a quiet, rustic village to find rest and inspiration for his writing. Saxon Wall seems the perfect rural retreat, and Jones is quickly intrigued by the odd characters among the villagers, their pagan beliefs, and by the mystery surrounding Neot House, where a young couple died soon after the birth of their first child.

But when disagreements between the villagers and their vicar grow more malevolent, and a man is found bludgeoned to death, Jones calls in Mrs Bradley, who proceeds to root out the devil of Saxon Wall by her own unorthodox methods.

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

Reviews

One of the "Big Three" female mystery novelists, judged the equal of Dorothy L Sayers and Agatha Christie, but that's not quite accurate - she's more like a mad combination of both

—— Independent

Crime writing's best kept secret

—— Scotsman

Completely individual, instantly recognisable and highly enjoyable

—— Times Literary Supplement

Superbly odd

—— Independent

Already being tipped for literary stardom. At the London Book Fair last April, nine publishers fought for her debut, Elizabeth is Missing... a tale of dementia, its TV rights have already been sold

—— Evening Standard's Fourteen in 2014

Memory - or the lack of it - continues to be a big theme in fiction. The manuscript of this debut mystery narrated by an 81 year old who can't quite remember what she's investigating created a buzz at the London book fair in 2013

—— Guardian's 2014 Books

Elizabeth is Missing will stir and shake you: an investigation into a seventy-year-old crime, through the eyes of the most likeably unreliable of narrators. But the real mystery at its compassionate core is the fragmentation of the human mind.

—— Emma Donoghue, award-winning author of Room

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