The most glamorous hotel in Europe is not immune to murder...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
When Julian Marks, a well-known diamond merchant, is found murdered at the Hotel Fantastique in Monte Carlo, the motive is presumed to be theft. Marks always carried with him an enormous diamond on a steel chain.
Guests have noticed a shady character in button boots staying at the hotel. But when the diamond is found in an unexpected place, French sleuth M Dupuy has to rethink his investigation. Could the mystery man now lead him to the culprit?
Anthony Gilbert's novels show the unsensational type of detective story at its best - DAILY TELEGRAPH
Well-plotted, fast-moving - brilliant
No author is more skilled at making a good story seem brilliant - SUNDAY EXPRESS
The plot is knife-edge tension all the way - BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Fast, light, likeable - NEW YORK TIMES
Unquestionably a most intelligent author. Gifts of ingenuity, style and character drawing - SUNDAY TIMES
A delight from start to finish ... The plotting is mesmerizing, the characters are outrageous, the suspense is relentless and the ending is killer. You're sure to be stunned by one or more twists in the gasp inducing finale - prettysinister.blogspot
If there is one author whose books need to be widely available, it is Gilbert - Inkquilletc.blogspot
Anthony Gilbert was the pen name of Lucy Beatrice Malleson. Born in London, she spent all her life there, and her affection for the city is clear from the strong sense of character and place in evidence in her work. She published 69 crime novels, 51 of which featured her best known character, Arthur Crook, a vulgar London lawyer totally (and deliberately) unlike the aristocratic detectives, such as Lord Peter Wimsey, who dominated the mystery field at the time. She also wrote more than 25 radio plays, which were broadcast in Great Britain and overseas. Her thriller The Woman in Red (1941) was broadcast in the United States by CBS and made into a film in 1945 under the title My Name is Julia Ross. She was an early member of the British Detection Club, which, along with Dorothy L. Sayers, she prevented from disintegrating during World War II. Malleson published her autobiography, Three-a-Penny, in 1940, and wrote numerous short stories, which were published in several anthologies and in such periodicals as Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and The Saint. The short story 'You Can't Hang Twice' received a Queens award in 1946. She never married, and evidence of her feminism is elegantly expressed in much of her work.