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Before the Fact

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About this listen

Some women give birth to murderers, some go to bed with them, and some marry them. Lina Aysgarth had lived with her husband for nearly eight years before she realized that she was married to a murderer.

Following the success of Malice Aforethought, novelist Anthony Berkeley Cox returned to his Francis Iles pen-name for another experiment in the inverted mystery. Where Malice Aforethought is a study of murder from the perpetrator's perspective, Before the Fact is a masterful tale of the suspicions of a possible victim and her impressions of disquieting husband Johnnie. Unsettling and gripping for its incisive portrayal of human emotion and fears, this experimental classic of crime fiction was the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's film Suspicion, but remains an arresting literary listen today.

©1932 The P.D. James Memorial Fund c/o The Society of Authors (P)2024 Soundings Mystery Traditional Detectives
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I have given this novel five stars because it is very well written and it is psychological true – there are people like Johnnie and Lina – and the story is enthralling. The novel was published in 1932 and it is fascinating to have an insight into life in that period, with lots of interesting details. However, I never want to listen to this novel again because Lina was so foolish and wrong-headed that I wanted to shake her.

Very well written, but...

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