When Lady Amelia Walden is murdered at Monk Fryston Hall Hotel in Yorkshire on the night of her eightieth birthday, the chief suspect is Robert Purbright, a bachelor in his fifties engaged at Farlington Hall, to catalogue her extensive collection of stamps. He is found not guilty but Lady Amelia’s son, Toby, vows to prove the verdict wrong.
When Lady Amelia Walden is murdered at Monk Fryston Hall Hotel in Yorkshire on the night of her eightieth birthday, the chief suspect is Robert Purbright, a bachelor in his fifties engaged at Farlington Hall, the ancestral Walden mansion, to catalogue her extensive collection of stamps. At his trial, the prosecution allege that he was creaming off choice specimens for himself and that his employer was beginning to have her suspicions. Exposure would have brought his career to an unpleasant end. The jury, however, find him Not Guilty. Enraged by their obtuseness, Lady Amelia’s son, Toby, vows to prove them wrong.
The detective inspector who had been in charge of the investigation, Walter Moat, admits to Toby Walden, in a strictly off-the-record conversation, that the police had made a poor case; but he also lays some of the blame on counsel for the prosecution for not fully exploiting the evidence. Despite his best amateur efforts, Walden does no better - until a second murder offers more promising openings. A book by Freud and an Iroquois legend conspire to raise Walden’s hopes of finally getting Purbright convicted. But will raised hopes be enough?
All the hall-marks of Falconer are here: velvet-smooth English, well-shaped narrative, erudite allusions, and a rich surplus of thought-provoking obiter dicta: in short, intelligent entertainment at its finest, for the connoisseur.
Julius Falconer completed six enjoyable years of university studies abroad (particularly slow, our Julius) before working as a translator back in the UK. Thinking that he could earn more as a teacher, to fund his lavish life-style, he took a PGCE at Leeds University and duly turned to teaching. He slaved away at the chalk-face for twenty-six long years in both Cornwall and Scotland before retiring to grow cabbages in Yorkshire, where he still lives. His wife of thirty-three years unfortunately died suddenly in 2000. He has one daughter, married. In 2009, looking to fill his new-found leisure profitably(?), he started to write detective novels and is still happily scribbling away seventeen books later. His interests include music, reading, walking, gardening and genealogy. Julius Falconer is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association. As well as some booklets and several dozen papers in professional journals, he is the author of eighteen murder mysteries featuring the diffident and cultured Inspector Wickfield. Because some of the stories are set in Worcestershire, he has featured in the Worcester News, on BBC Radio Hereford and Worcester and in the online Newsletter for the Worcestershire tourist board.
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