There really isn't much good that can be said about Adrian Gray. The patriarch of a relatively large family, he is in the habit of inviting all (or almost all) of the members of that family to spend Christmas with him at the family home. It must also be said that Gray has very little use for his family members - and the feeling is most definitely returned. And, as readers of Golden Age classics, we all know what happens to stingy and unpleasant elderly men at large family gatherings at the family's country house. But let's shift our focus a bit, away from the usual "whodunit" and into more of a "whydunit" and "cantheygetawaywithit" mystery called Portrait of a Murderer, by Anne Meredith, first published in 1934. It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you are welcome to listen to the complete review by clicking here. Rarely reprinted, it is being republished at the beginning of April as one of the British Library Crime Classics, which are being published in the United States by Poisoned Pen Press. The publisher has provided me with a copy for this review.
It is worth noting that all of Adrian Gray's surviving family members are both self-centered and greedy. Most are planning to try to get urgently-needed money out of Adrian Gray. But that particular well has clearly run dry, so that, when members of the family seek him out privately to plead for a "loan" (unlikely ever to be repaid, of course), they are turned down, with Adrian throwing in a fair amount of truly nasty invective. And one member of that family, goaded beyond endurance, kills the old man, as we are told in the book's opening paragraph. Which one? Well, that will be revealed quite early. Then, we'll follow that killer, who tries to come up with schemes that will misdirect the police (and other family members, too) and save the real killer's neck.
It's a harrowing journey through the killer's mind, and it's a pretty dark picture, extremely well-drawn. "Anne Meredith," the author, was one of the pen names of Lucy Beatrice Malleson, who may be better known to readers of traditional mysteries as "Anthony Gilbert," under which name she wrote a popular series of mysteries about a Cockney solicitor named Arthur Crook. Mystery historian Martin Edwards provides this edition of Portrait of a Murderer with a new introduction which will introduce readers to Lucy Beatrice Malleson's life and work. The novel is quite dark, but powerfully written, and I do recommend it to you.
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