Murder of a Lady by Anthony Wynne

Murder of a Lady by Anthony Wynne ISBN-13: 9781464205712 Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press Released: 1931; Feb. 2, 2016

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Duchlan Castle is a gloomy, forbidding place in the Scottish Highlands. Mary Gregor, sister of the laird of Duchlan, is found stabbed to death in her bedroom. The room is locked from within and the windows are barred. A silver fish scale is left on the terrible wound.

The Gregor family and their servants are quick to explain that Mary was a kind and charitable woman. Superstitious locals believe that fish creatures from the nearby waters are responsible. Amateur sleuth Eustace Hailey uncovers a more complex truth, and the cruel character of the dead woman continues to pervade the house after her death. Soon further deaths, equally impossible, occur, and the atmosphere grows ever darker.


My Review:
Murder of a Lady is a mystery novel set in Scotland and originally published in 1931. It's the amateur sleuth, Hailey, that's the main character and who solved the case. It's a "locked room" mystery that could potentially be solved in several ways. There were clues, and you could guess whodunit from the clues, but some critical clues weren't discovered until nearly the end.

I originally guessed something similar to what the second inspector concluded, and my solution still seems more plausible to me than the actual solution. Having worked with the murder weapon before, I think whodunit was extremely lucky that everything happened exactly right to get the desired end and that no one noticed that certain things went missing at the time of the crime.

The characters were more "types" of people or pieces of a puzzle than people to sympathize with or hate. There was no sex or bad language. Overall, I still enjoyed reading the story and would recommend this mystery.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.