"What have you got, Geoffrey?"

"A body."

"Dead?"

"Dead and buried. At least, it was."

"You're not going to tell me you've discovered the secret of eternal life?

It is another case of murder--and the defendant's prescription is Antony Maitland! Here Antony takes up the defense of Henry Langton, a doctor from the suburban London village of Oakhurst who is accused of having strangled two women-his own late semi-invalid wife Ruth as well as Mollie Browne, the woman who conveniently provided him with an alibi for the time of Ruth's murder! After Antony finds that the killable Mollie Browne was not quite the merry widow she appeared, he unearths quite the latest wrinkle in extortion schemes. Through interviews with Mollie's younger sister Cathie and Mollie's many ex-boyfriends, an altogether more unpleasant picture of the woman and her activities emerges: one, as Antony puts it, quoting the Book of Common Prayer, of "envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness." Protests Antony's Uncle Nick: "Antony, we're getting to the borderland of insanity now." Yet could Antony's wilder imaginings once again prove right?

This gripping courtroom drama from 1969 features a new introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.