"It had sometimes seemed to Maitland, in the course of his researches, that there was nothing original left to be done when it came to extracting poisonous substances from the hedgerow; they were all there, foxglove and monkshood and deadly nightshade, and man's ingenuity more than sufficient to exploit their murderous qualities, even if he had been a little slow to split the atom or find a cure for the common cold." Antony Maitland has just concluded a case in the West Midlands town of Chedcombe when he is implored by gruff local lady barrister Vera Langhorne to lead the defense of Fran Gifford, a pretty legal secretary charged with the poisoning murder of her wealthy, elderly godmother, Alice Randall. Initially skeptical--"Miss Langhorne's a genuine dragon," he tells his wife Jenny on the phone, "I don't want to get to get scorched."-Antony decides to get involved after talking in prison to Fran and believing against the evidence in the young woman's innocence. But Chedcombe, it seems, does not take kindly to interference from hotshot lawyer outsiders like Antony. In his trickiest, most intricate case yet, the brilliant barrister finds that this insular Midlands town may prove even more dangerous and deadly than London.
"Interesting characters, including a woman lawyer, are plentiful, and the dénouement is brought off in the finest British Perry Mason style." Alice Cromie, Chicago Tribune "Very fine, both in detection and legal work." Frances Crane, Santa Fe New Mexican
