With an introduction by Martin Edwards 'My friend Ellingham has persuaded me to reveal to the public the astounding features of the Reisby case.
As a study in criminal aberration it is, he tells me, of particular interest, while in singularity of horror and in perversity of ingenious method it is probably unique.
' 1913.
John Farringdale, with his cousin Eric Foster, visits the famous archaeologist Tolgen Reisby.
At Scarweather - Reisby's lonely house on the windswept northern coast of England - Eric is quickly attracted to Reisby's much younger wife, and matters soon take a dangerous turn.
Fifteen years later, the final scene of the drama is enacted.
This unorthodox novel from 1934 is by a gifted crime writer who, wrote Dorothy L.
Sayers, 'handles his characters like a real novelist and the English language like a real writer - merits which are still, unhappily, rarer than they should be in the ranks of the murder specialists.