Home to Roost

It is one thing to commit a murder, another to confess to it, as mystery writer Walter Haines finds out. When popular TV actor Max Ryland is stabbed to death in his cottage, Walter is safely in Portugal. His wife had run off with Max so Walter has every reason to be bitter and vengeful, but enough to commit murder?

Then Walter, for his own reasons, chooses to confess to the crime. The police insist that he re-enact the murder exactly as he alleged he committed it and they lie in wait to time him and trap him at every turn. Can Walter convince the police of his guilt by breaking a perfect alibi? And which is genuine, the alibi—or the confession?

‘I was thrilled to read this book. Garve is a master; every word made you want to read the next. A superb work of art. A great book.’ Dick Francis

‘A distinctly original variation on the whodunit.’ Maurice Richardson, Observer

‘A beautifully conceived and executed story.’ Birmingham Post

Andrew Garve is the pen name of Paul Winterton (1908-2001). He was born in Leicester and educated at the Hulme Grammar School, Manchester and Purley County School, Surrey, after which he took a degree in Economics at London University. He was on the staff of The Economist for four years, and then worked for fourteen years for the London News Chronicle as reporter, leader writer and foreign correspondent. He was assigned to Moscow from 1942 to 1945, where he was also the correspondent of the BBC’s Overseas Service.

After the war he turned to full-time writing of detective and adventure novels and produced more than forty-five books. His work was serialized, televised, broadcast, filmed and translated into some twenty languages. He is noted for his varied and unusual backgrounds – which have included Russia, newspaper offices, the West Indies, ocean sailing, the Australian outback, politics, mountaineering and forestry – and for never repeating a plot.

Andrew Garve was a founder member and first joint secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association.