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From the dust jacket:
When Arthur Milton's wife leaves him for another man, and that man is soon murdered, Arthur is the Number One suspect. He hasn't a satisfactory alibi; in fact he was in a cafe close to the scene of the crime, on the night of the murder — though Julie, the girl who serves there, doesn't give this away to the police, which deeply touches him. And his behaviour becomes increasingly strange: he abandons his home, takes a room in the seedy boarding-house run by the girl's tartish mother, and becomes Julie's lover.
It's plain that he is greatly troubled by a sense of guilt. But guilt for what? For the murder of Jobling? Then why does he begin investigating a murder of twenty years ago: the strangling of a girl with whom he once had an affair — a girl who was then about Julie's present age.
A wise and understanding police detective plays a waiting and watching game, and we may think we know what the outcome is going to be but we'll probably be quite wrong. For Mr Burley has several startling and yet logical surprises in store. He has given us a most unusual plot this time, and a fascinating study of a troubled mind. |
