Death Framed in Silver

It was Margaret Fairlamb-still warm, but stone-dead.

Margaret Fairlamb, celebrated actress, had been a popular and genuinely loved figure in the world of the theatre. Her death at the hands of an unknown, brutal assailant was a calamity fraught with horror not only to her family and friends, but to a wide public as well. Every known fact pointed to robbery as the motive. What other belief was possible when the victim had not an enemy in the world, and when the handbag taken from her had contained close on £100 in addition to valuable jewellery? Her death, following as it did the equally mysterious demise of her friend and fellow actress Rose Walsh, was a first-class sensation, but it was only the prelude to a story that for sheer drama outclassed any of the plots that had made her famous.

Death Framed in Silver was originally published in 1937. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

"She could not be unexciting if...