About this ebook
The Edgar Award–winning author of the Peter Duluth series delivers a taut mystery of a mild-mannered man out to prove himself innocent of murder.
Patrick Quentin, best known for the Peter Duluth puzzle mysteries, also penned outstanding detective novels from the 1930s through the 1960s under other pseudonyms, including Q. Patrick and Jonathan Stagge. Anthony Boucher wrote: “Quentin is particularly noted for the enviable polish and grace which make him one of the leading American fabricants of the murderous comedy of manners; but this surface smoothness conceals intricate and meticulous plot construction as faultless as that of Agatha Christie.”
Andrew Jordan might be called an everyman—if it meant that every man drifts through life in a perpetual haze of boredom, a completely bland creature married to a woman who neither appreciates nor loves him. Even the series of anonymous messages warning him of his wife’s infidelity spark nothing in him except a belief that whatever is wrong must be his fault.
Then his wife is murdered, and the meek Andrew is a prime suspect.
With no one to turn to, Andrew begins his own investigation, discovering there were more than a few people who had it in for his wife. The more he learns, the more he realizes someone is setting him up for a big fall.
And if he doesn’t stand up, man up, and prove his innocence, they are going to succeed.
Patrick Quentin, best known for the Peter Duluth puzzle mysteries, also penned outstanding detective novels from the 1930s through the 1960s under other pseudonyms, including Q. Patrick and Jonathan Stagge. Anthony Boucher wrote: “Quentin is particularly noted for the enviable polish and grace which make him one of the leading American fabricants of the murderous comedy of manners; but this surface smoothness conceals intricate and meticulous plot construction as faultless as that of Agatha Christie.”
Andrew Jordan might be called an everyman—if it meant that every man drifts through life in a perpetual haze of boredom, a completely bland creature married to a woman who neither appreciates nor loves him. Even the series of anonymous messages warning him of his wife’s infidelity spark nothing in him except a belief that whatever is wrong must be his fault.
Then his wife is murdered, and the meek Andrew is a prime suspect.
With no one to turn to, Andrew begins his own investigation, discovering there were more than a few people who had it in for his wife. The more he learns, the more he realizes someone is setting him up for a big fall.
And if he doesn’t stand up, man up, and prove his innocence, they are going to succeed.
About the author
Patrick Quentin, Q. Patrick, and Jonathan Stagge were pen names under which Hugh Callingham Wheeler (1912–1987), Richard Wilson Webb (1901–1966), Martha Mott Kelley (1906–2005), and Mary Louise White Aswell (1902–1984) wrote detective fiction. Most of the stories were written together by Webb and Wheeler, or by Wheeler alone. Their best-known creation is amateur sleuth Peter Duluth. In 1963, the story collection The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow was given a Special Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America.
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