Fault in the Structure
A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY
Rediscover Gladys Mitchell – one of the 'Big Three' female crime fiction writers alongside Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.
It occurred to Alfrist C Swinburne early in life that death was a solver of problems, particularly when it was visited on close family members who will leave behind a rich inheritance.
Dame Beatrice Bradley, psychoanalyst and sleuth, first crosses paths with Swinburne when a woman's body is discovered in the cloisters of a women's college, but it is not until a dramatic performance of the Beggar's Opera that Dame Beatrice can unmask the secrets of Swinburne's chequered past.
Opinionated, unconventional, unafraid... If you like Poirot and Miss Marple, you’ll love Mrs Bradley.
Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell – or ‘The Great Gladys’ as Philip Larkin called her – was born in 1901, in Cowley in Oxfordshire. She graduated in history from University College London and in 1921 began her long career as a teacher. Her hobbies included architecture and writing poetry. She studied the works of Sigmund Freud and her interest in witchcraft was encouraged by her friend, the detective novelist Helen Simpson.
Her first novel, Speedy Death, was published in 1929 and introduced readers to Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, the detective heroine of a further sixty six crime novels. She wrote at least one novel a year throughout her career and was an early member of the Detection Club, alongside Agatha Christie, G.K Chesterton and Dorothy Sayers.In 1961 she retired from teaching and, from her home in Dorset, continued to write, receiving the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger in 1976. Gladys Mitchell died in 1983.