About this item
Death of Jezebel, an Inspector Cockrill mystery. "This is a locked-room mystery with a difference, and what a difference it is!" - The New York Times "Cannily plotted and actionful." - The Saturday Review of Literature. Isabel Drew had done her best in life to live up to her nickname, Jezebel. Sadly, someone believes her efforts insufficient and helps her off the balcony of a theater castle tower. It was a seemingly impossible crime; the culprit escapes detection even though the act is committed before eleven knights on horseback and an entire audience of witnesses. . From the book:Cockie's brown fingers played with his cigarette. "This is a projection of the 'sealed room' mystery. The scene of the murder was bounded on one side by a stage, under the observation of several thousand pairs of eyes; and on the other by a locked door, with somebody sitting on guard on the other side of it.
About the Author
Christianna Brand (December 17, 1907 - March 11, 1988) was a crime writer and children's author. Brand also wrote under the pseudonyms , Mary Roland, and China Thomson. She was born Mary Christianna Milne in 1907 in Malaya and spent her early years in India. She had a number of different occupations, including model, dancer, shop assistant and governess. Her first novel, Death in High Heels, was written while Brand was working as a salesgirl. In 1941, one of her best-loved characters, Inspector Cockrill of the Kent County Police, made his debut in the book Heads You Lose. The character would go on to appear in seven of her novels. Green for Danger is Brand's most famous novel. The whodunit, set in a World War 2 hospital, was adapted for film by Eagle-Lion Films in 1946, starring Alastair Sim as the Inspector. She dropped the series in the late 1950s and concentrated on various genres as well as short stories. She was nominated three times for Edgar Awards: for the short stories "Poison in the Cup" (EQMM, Feb. 1969) and "Twist for Twist" (EQMM, May 1967) and for a nonfiction work about a Scottish murder case, Heaven Knows Who (1960) . She is the author of the children's series Nurse Matilda, which Emma Thompson adapted to film as Nanny McPhee (2005) .Her Inspector Cockrill short stories and a previously unpublished Cockrill stage play were collected as The Spotted Cat and Other Mysteries from inspector Cockrill's Casebook, edited by Tony Medawar (2002) .