That Yew Tree's Shade

(Paperback, Main)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Cyril Hares style is easy and fluent, and his books are eminently readable A great novelist. Spectator The Yew Trees Shade originally published in 1954 is a Frances Pettigrew mystery, and was published in the US as Death Walks the Woods. Frances Pettigrew, a former barrister and sometimes amateur detective, is plucked out of what promises to be a peaceful retirement in the Home Counties to deputise for the County Court judge. The proceedings offer him some unexpected insights into the lives of the new neighbours that he has until now only observed through his field glasses. When the body of a penniless widow known for her good works is found on Yew Hill, a famous local beauty spot, Pettigrew is drawn into the case as a witness. Despite his best efforts to leave the inquiry to the police, it is he, with the unconscious help of a teenage boy, who puts the finishing touches on the solution.

Author Bio

Cyril Hare was the pseudonym for the distinguished lawyer Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark. He was born in Surrey, in 1900, and was educated at Rugby and Oxford. A member of the Inner Temple, he was called to the Bar in 1924 and joined the chambers of Roland Oliver, who handled many of the great crime cases of the 1920s. He practised as a barrister until the Second World War, after which he served in various legal and judicial capacities including a time as a county court judge in Surrey. Hare's crime novels, many of which draw on his legal experience, have been praised by Elizabeth Bowen and P.D. James among others. He died in 1958 at the peak of his career as a judge, and at the height of his powers as a master of the whodunit.