The Woman in Red

They took her identity - they wanted her life - but they couldn't take her spirit.

Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club

When Julia Ross, a jobless and penniless young woman, is sent to meet a prospective employer, she is oblivious to the trap that awaits her. As she rings the bell to 30 Henriques Square, the door opens on a London household ruled by a woman dressed in red with murderous intentions. For Julia is exactly what she needs - someone with no family, no connections, who will not be missed...

Two days later, Julia awakes in a different house in different clothes and with a new identity. And no one will believe anything she says.

But the woman in red hadn't reckoned on a secret admirer even Julia didn't know she had - and the indefatigable sleuth Arthur Crook.

“Anthony Gilbert shared with other successful crime writers a combination of writing talent and clever plotting skills necessary to make it in detective fiction's Golden Age ... Along with Agatha Christie [he] had a talent to deceive”

No author is more skilled at making a good story seem brilliant - SUNDAY EXPRESS

Unquestionably a most intelligent author. Gifts of ingenuity, style and character drawing - SUNDAY TIMES

If there is one author whose books need to be widely available, it is Gilbert - Inkquilletc.blogspot

Well-plotted, fast-moving - brilliant

Fast, light, likeable - NEW YORK TIMES

- mysteryfile.com

Anthony Gilbert was the pen name of Lucy Beatrice Malleson. Born in London, she spent all her life there, and her affection for the city is clear from the strong sense of character and place in evidence in her work. She published 69 crime novels, 51 of which featured her best known character, Arthur Crook, a vulgar London lawyer totally (and deliberately) unlike the aristocratic detectives, such as Lord Peter Wimsey, who dominated the mystery field at the time. She also wrote more than 25 radio plays, which were broadcast in Great Britain and overseas. Her thriller The Woman in Red (1941) was broadcast in the United States by CBS and made into a film in 1945 under the title My Name is Julia Ross. She was an early member of the British Detection Club, which, along with Dorothy L. Sayers, she prevented from disintegrating during World War II. Malleson published her autobiography, Three-a-Penny, in 1940, and wrote numerous short stories, which were published in several anthologies and in such periodicals as Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and The Saint. The short story 'You Can't Hang Twice' received a Queens award in 1946. She never married, and evidence of her feminism is elegantly expressed in much of her work.

They took her identity - they wanted her life - but they couldn't take her spirit. Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection ClubWhen Julia Ross, a jobless and penniless young woman, is sent to meet a prospective employer, she is oblivious to the trap that awaits her. As she rings the bell to 30 Henriques Square, the door opens on a London household ruled by a woman dressed in red with murderous intentions. For Julia is exactly what she needs - someone with no family, no connections, who will not be missed...Two days later, Julia awakes in a different house in different clothes and with a new identity. And no one will believe anything she says. But the woman in red hadn't reckoned on a secret admirer even Julia didn't know she had - and the indefatigable sleuth Arthur Crook.

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