Smallbone Deceased

Начало книги

Smallbone Deceased was first published in 1950, and few British detective stories during the rest of the Fifties came close to matching it in terms of quality. This was Michael Gilbert’s fourth novel, and the first in which he drew extensively on his first-hand knowledge of life inside a London law firm. The book blends in masterly fashion an authentic setting, pleasingly differentiated characters, smoothly readable prose, and a clever puzzle.

The opening scene, set at a dinner in a Holborn restaurant, offers a witty introduction to partners and staff of Horniman, Birley and Craine, “the Gordon Selfridge of solicitors, different departments to suit all tastes and purses”. Several of those present will shortly become suspects in a murder case when a dead body is found at the firm’s premises at Lincoln’s Inn, concealed within a hermetically sealed deed box. Also in attendance is Henry Bohun, “the very newest thing in solicitors”, a brilliant and slightly mysterious young man with a flair for amateur detection.

Читать дальше →