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- The Bellamy Trial (American Mystery Classics) by Frances Noyes Hart
The Bellamy Trial (American Mystery Classics) by Frances Noyes Hart
The Bellamy Trial (American Mystery Classics) by Frances Noyes Hart
The trial of Stephen Bellamy and Susan Ives, accused of murdering Bellamy's wife Madeleine, lasts eight days. That's eight days of witnesses (some reliable, some not), eight days of examination and cross-examination, and eight days of sensational courtroom theatrics lively enough to rouse the judge into frenzied calls for order. Ex-fiances, houseworkers, and assorted family members are brought to the stand -- a cross-section of this wealthy Long Island town -- and each one only adds to the mystery of the case in all its sordid detail. A trial that seems straightforward at its outset grows increasingly confounding as it proceeds, and surprises abound; by the time the closing arguments are made, however, the reader, like the jury, has all the evidence needed to pass judgment on the two defendants.
Inspired by the most sensational murder trial of its day, The Bellamy Trial is one of the first courtroom mysteries ever written. It is included in the famed Haycraft-Queen cornerstone list of the definitive titles of the mystery genre and was ranked by author Rex Stout among the ten best mysteries of all time.
Frances Noyes Hart (1890 - 1943) was an American writer whose stories were published in Scribner's, The Ladies' Home Journal, and The Saturday Evening Post, where The Bellamy Trial was first serialized.
PENZLER PUBLICATIONS, SOFTCOVER, 1927, 2019
THIS IS A BRAND-NEW BOOK.