A Talent for Murder: A Novel by Andrew Wilson (English) Paperback Book

Description: A Talent for Murder by Andrew Wilson Distracted by revelations about her husbands affair, writer Agatha Christie is interrupted during a visit to her London literary agent by an insidious blackmailer seeking to manipulate her into committing a murder. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Discover the real-life mystery surrounding the queen of crime herself: Agatha Christie. In this "audacious mystery...with thrilling results" (The Guardian), Andrew Wilson investigates Christies unexplained ten-day disappearance and offers his own gripping explanation, in which Christie is pulled into a riveting case of blackmail and murder. "I wouldnt scream if I were you. Unless you want the whole world to learn about your husband and his mistress." Agatha Christie is preparing to board a train, preoccupied with the devastating knowledge that her husband is having an affair. She feels a light touch on her back, causing her to lose her balance, then a sense of someone pulling her to safety from the rush of the incoming train. So begins a terrifying sequence of events--for her rescuer is no guardian angel, rather he is a blackmailer of the most insidious, manipulative kind. "You, Mrs. Christie, are going to commit a murder. But, before then, you are going to disappear." Writing about murder is a far cry from committing a crime, and Agatha must use every ounce of her cleverness and resourcefulness to thwart an adversary determined to exploit her expertise and knowledge of the act of murder to kill on his behalf. In this tantalizing novel Andrew Wilson ingeniously explores Agatha Christies odd ten-day disappearance in 1926 and weaves an utterly compelling and convincing story around this still unsolved mystery involving the worlds bestselling novelist. Author Biography Andrew Wilson is an award-winning journalist and author. His work has appeared in a wide variety of publications including the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Sunday Times, and the Smithsonian Magazine. He is the author of four acclaimed biographies, a book about the survivors of the Titanic, and the novels The Lying Tongue, A Talent for Murder, A Different Kind of Evil, and Death in a Desert Land. Review "A fast-paced, pleasingly twisted and creepy thriller...reads like an amalgamation of a clever Agatha Christie puzzler with the darker characters and psychological insights found in Patricia Highsmiths thrillers...With Strong characters, shrewd plotting and a skillful blending of fact and fiction, A Talent for Murder is a compelling period mystery that will keep whodunit fans captivated."-- "Shelf Awareness (Starred Review)" Review Quote "The queen of crime is the central character in this audacious mystery, which reinvents the story of her mysterious disappearance with thrilling results." Excerpt from Book A Talent for Murder 1 Wherever I turned my head, I thought I saw her: a woman people described as striking, beautiful even. That would never have been my choice of words. Of course, when I looked again across the glove counter or perfume display, it was never her, just another dark-haired woman trying to make the best of herself. But each of these imagined glimpses left a piece of scar tissue across my heart. I told myself to stop thinking of her--I would simply pretend the situation did not exist--but then I caught sight of another pale-faced brunette and the dull ache in my chest would flare up again and leave me feeling nauseous. When I had first fallen in love with Archie, I had likened the feeling to a white dove trying to escape from my chest. Now that Archies head had been turned by this creature, I imagined the dove being strangled with a necklace of barbed wire and slowly rotting away inside me. The distant sound of a brass band playing carols lightened my mood for a moment. I had always adored Christmas and I was determined that this year was going to seem just as festive and jolly as normal, at least for Rosalinds sake. I walked over to the doll counter and a bank of china-white faces with blank blue eyes stared back at me. I picked up a doll with straw-yellow hair and ran my fingers down its smooth pale cheek. How funny that I had named my own daughter after my childhood doll, a toy that I had admired but rarely played with. Even then I had preferred to make up my own stories. Rosalind had not inherited my imagination, which was probably for the best, as sometimes my fancy, although it had its benefits, left me feeling wrung out and close to wretched. As I put the doll back down on the counter and was about to pick up its black-haired twin with eyes like plump blackberries, I felt a pricking at the base of my skull. The hairs on the back of my neck bristled and a shiver went through me. I turned round, certain that someone was studying me, but met only the kindly eyes of elderly ladies dressed in their smart tweeds. I comforted myself with the knowledge that the Army & Navy Stores in Victoria was the kind of place where nothing dreadful could ever happen. I had been coming here since I was a girl, when Granny B. would take me shopping to buy lengths of ribbon and bags of buttons. Afterwards, my grandmother would always treat me to a delicious strawberry ice. And yet now, there was something terribly wrong. The feeling of dread was physical. My mouth was dry and my throat tightened. My breathing had quickened. I raised my hand to my neck to try to loosen the collar of my blouse, but that didnt help. I still felt as though someone was watching me and they wanted to do me harm. When I was a small girl I had suffered from nightmares in which the character of a gunman had appeared to me. He had looked, so I had told my mother and sister, Madge, like a French soldier carrying a musket. But it had not been the sight of the gun that had frightened me. Rather, there had been something else that had disturbed me, something about his nature, his character. He was a personification of evil, a force I knew even then was only too real. Sometimes, I would have dreams in which I would be sitting at the dining table at Ashfield, the family house in Torquay, and I would look up to see that his spirit had stolen into the body of my dear mother or Madge. Now I could almost feel the Gunmans hot, sour breath on the back of my neck. I gathered my things together and, with the kind of slow, deliberate pace of a cat sensing the approach of danger, walked towards the exit onto Victoria Street. The sharp slap of the cold December air came as something of a relief. I had to stop myself from looking around nervously. My hands were trembling, my mouth still dry. Surely the sense of danger I had felt in the Stores and on the street could not have been merely a product of my imagination. Yet I felt my cheeks redden as I remembered the incident of the check. I had been down at Ashfield, clearing out the house after my mothers death. What with the ten- or eleven-hour days, the boxes full of family mementos, the moth-eaten clothes, the piles of Grannies dresses, and the crowd of memories from my childhood that threatened to transport me back to the past, I must have lost my senses for a moment. I had been asked to write a check and I had signed not my own name but that of Blanche Amory, a character from a Thackeray novel. What had come over me? Was the same thing happening to me now? Was I losing touch with reality? It was a terrifying feeling. I tried to take a couple of deep breaths, but my chest felt tight. I could not shake off the sense that at any moment something awful would happen. I wanted to rush back to the safety and comforts of the Forum, my club on Hyde Park Corner. But I didnt want the Gunman to follow me there. With a deliberately slow pace I set off down Victoria Street in the direction of the Underground. As I approached the entrance to the station, the crowd began to swell. Even though my legs felt as though they might give way at any moment, fear propelled me forwards. Luckily, the station was busy and I disappeared among the throng. I pushed my way through the crowd, looking around as I did so. I bought myself a ticket and descended into the dark bowels of London. I felt sure I had shaken off whoever it was who had been following me. As I breathed in the sooty air I felt, for a moment, happy and safe again. Some of my smart Sunningdale friends always thought it was rather quaint that I loved traveling on the Underground. But it was such a rich source of material: all those intriguing faces, those curious characters, not to mention the delicious possibilities it presented when it came to plot. The Man in the Brown Suit was a perfect example. It was a bit of a silly story, but it had proved popular with the readers, no doubt because of its dramatic opening that I had chosen to set on the platform at Hyde Park Corner. That had been such a fun novel to write, and I had dashed it off relatively quickly, not like the turgid stuff I had been churning out lately. Perhaps I needed a holiday. I hoped the short break in Beverley would do me--do both of us--a world of good. I certainly wasnt a subscriber to the theory that unhappiness bred creativity. This last year had been the most miserable of my life and look what I had produced: the Frankensteins monster that was The Big Four, a novel that had been stitched together from a series of short stories, and a few lackluster scenes for a book, The Mystery of the Blue Train, that would not flow. A blast of hot air signaled the imminent arrival of the train. I grasped my hat and stepped closer to the edge of the platform so I could have a better chance of securing a seat. Another step and I could easily lose my balance and fall onto the tracks. Everything, all the pain that I had suffered over the course of the year, would come to an end. Archie would be free to marry, there would be none of the shame that always came with a divorce, and Rosalind would learn to love her new mother. What was it my daughter had said to me? "I know Daddy likes me and would like to be with me. Its you he doesnt seem to like." Only a child, in all her innocence, could utter such a thing. And yet while this was an accurate description of the state of our marriage, the observation had felt like another dagger to the heart. As the train emerged from the blackness and started to hurtle towards us, I took a step back. The noise of the engine vibrated in my ears, deafening me for a moment. Just then, I felt a light touch on the base of my spine. I turned to look round, but in that split second, the pressure on my back intensified. I felt myself being shunted, pushed forwards towards the tracks. I opened my mouth to scream, but my throat had turned to sandpaper. My hands reached out at awkward angles in a bid to hold on to something, anything, but I clasped at nothing but hot air. I could feel the skin on my cheeks begin to burn from a ferocious all-consuming heat that seemed to be sucking the liquid from my eyes. Just as I was tipping forwards, my head lolling like the dolls I had handled in the Stores, I felt an almighty wrench pull me back, a strength that I had hardly thought possible. I gasped at the force of it. It was then I felt myself melting away as I fainted and collapsed onto the platform. I became aware of someone breathing into my ear. At first, I thought I was in bed, with Rosalind beside me. But then I became aware of a sourness, an unpleasant ferric odor that forced me to open my eyes. I woke up to a world of fragments and disjointed faces. "Im a doctor, stand clear, please stand clear," a voice said. I tried to speak, but could not. Again, there was that foul stream of air on my face. I felt someone cradling my head. The touch was soft and delicate, but my body, instead of relaxing, began to tense up. I attempted to sit, but the long fingers with their silky touch eased me back down again. "Now, now, lie there for a moment or two. You nearly had a nasty accident. It seems that you fainted just as the train was approaching." "No, I felt someone--" "Yes, you felt someone pull you back. That was me. Im a doctor." Although the words should have been comforting, for some reason they sent a chill through me. "Thank you, thats very kind. But Im feeling much better now. If you could just let Details ISBN150114507X Author Andrew Wilson Short Title TALENT FOR MURDER Pages 320 Publisher Washington Square Press Language English ISBN-10 150114507X ISBN-13 9781501145070 Format Paperback DEWEY FIC Year 2018 Publication Date 2018-01-02 Subtitle A Novel Imprint Washington Square Press UK Release Date 2018-01-02 Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:137590750;

Price: 43.01 AUD

Location: Melbourne

End Time: 2024-12-17T02:44:21.000Z

Shipping Cost: 0 AUD