The Witness for the Prosecution: And Other Stories
By (Author) Agatha Christie
Introduction by Sarah Phelps
HarperCollins Publishers
HarperCollins
21st November 2016
1st December 2016
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Short stories
822.912
Paperback
304
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 19mm
210g
Agatha Christies classic short story collection, including one of her most enduring and shocking thrillers, The Witness for the Prosecution.
1920s London.
A murder, brutal and bloodthirsty, has stained the plush carpets of a handsome London townhouse. The victim is the glamorous and enormously rich Emily French. All the evidence points to Leonard Vole, a young chancer to whom the heiress left her vast fortune and who ruthlessly took her life. At least, this is the story that Emilys dedicated housekeeper Janet Mackenzie stands by in court. Leonard however, is adamant that his partner, the enigmatic chorus girl Romaine, can prove his innocence.
With the long terrible shadow of the Great War falling across the rackety, feral 1920s, The Witness for the Prosecution is a compelling story of deceit, desire, murder, money and morality, innocence and guilt, heartbreak and most painful and dangerous of all, love. At the centre of this dark and tangled net is the astonishing character of Romaine, a noir heroine for all our times. Sarah Phelps
Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in over 100 foreign countries. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott.