Death Has Deep Roots: A Second World War Mystery

by Michael Gilbert, Martin Edwards (Introduction)

Overview

Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder

An eager London crowd awaits the trial of Victoria Lamartine, hotel worker, ex-French Resistance fighter, and the only logical suspect for the murder of her supposed lover, Major Eric Thoseby. Lamartine—who once escaped from the clutches of the Gestapo—is set to meet her end at the gallows.

One final opportunity remains: the defendant calls on solicitor Nap Rumbold to replace the defence counsel,and grants an eight-day reprieve from the proceedings. Without any time to spare, Rumbold boards a ferry across the Channel, tracing the roots of the brutal murder back into the war-torn past.

Expertly combining authentic courtroom drama at the Old Bailey with a perilous quest for evidence across France, Death Has Deep Roots is an unorthodox marvel of the mystery genre.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781492699538
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	11/05/2019
Series:	British Library Crime Classics
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	495,996
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Michael Gilbert (1912-2006) was a founding member of the Crime Writers' Association. He wrote thrillers, police procedurals and espionage novels that rank among the highest and most varied achievements of British crime writing in the second half of the twentieth century.

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/02/2019

In this entry in the British Library Crime Classics series, first published in 1951, Gilbert (1912–2006) does a masterly job of blending whodunit, courtroom drama, and thriller. Victoria Lamartine, a Frenchwoman living in London a few years after WWII, has been charged with stabbing Maj. Eric Thoseby to death in his room. During the war, Thoseby worked as a British agent in the same part of France where Lamartine ran errands for the Resistance. The prosecution believes that Lamartine was motivated by hatred of the victim, who fathered her child and then abandoned them both. On the eve of her trial, she switches attorneys and enlists Noel Anthony Pontarlier Rumbold to defend her, asserting not only her innocence but that Thoseby was not the father of her now-dead son. Rumbold’s efforts on her behalf, which take him across the Channel to investigate, expose him to danger, even as skilled barrister Hargest Macrea uses his superior cross-examination skills to raise doubts about the government’s case. Readers who like their detection balanced by action will be more than satisfied. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"This latest addition to the British Library Crime Classics series shows Gilbert at his best, displaying both impressive psychological acuity and innovative plotting, combining courtroom drama with amateur sleuthing." — Booklist

"A masterly job of blending whodunit, courtroom drama, and thriller...readers who like their detection balanced by action will be more than satisfied. " — Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review

From the Publisher

2019-08-19
Can't decide whether to read a British courtroom drama or a tale of continental adventure? This tour de force, originally published in 1951, provides both.

According to Crown Prosecutor Claudian Summers, Victoria Lamartine came from France to the U.K. after the war to find Maj. Eric Thoseby, the British officer working with the Resistance who'd fathered her late son, and killed him when he finally agreed to meet with her at London's Family Hotel, where owner Honorifique Sainte, who'd come from the same Loire region as her, employed her as a receptionist. Vicky's own take on this story is of course different: She'd had no reason to stab Thoseby to death because she'd never had an affair with him but sought him out only in the hope that he could give her information about Lt. Julian Wells, the real father of her child. On the eve of her trial, Vicky fires the solicitor who'd planned to plead her guilty and ask for mercy and instead begs young Nap Rumbold to take over her defense. After Rumbold briefs barrister Hargest Macrea to assume courtroom duties and asks Maj. Angus McCann to look for exculpatory evidence in England, he books passage for Angers in search of Wells. His quest is complicated by persistent rumors that his quarry was discovered, captured, and executed by the Gestapo during the war and hints that a group of gold smugglers somehow involved with the case are determined to keep Nap from learning anything, even if they have to resort to violence. "This isn't a detective story," grouses Macrea, but he's doubly wrong: After deftly cutting back and forth between Nap's increasingly fraught inquiries and Macrea's legal tactics, Gilbert (The Curious Conspiracy: And Other Crimes, 2002, etc.) pulls them together with a virtuoso snap, producing an ending as logical as it is surprising.

A grand example of Gilbert's ceaselessly inventive attempts to expand the remit of the traditional whodunit.

Kirkus Reviews