Bloody Instructions - Sara Woods

"Miss Bell found him," said Antony. "That was about fifteen minutes after I got there. She let out a yell that brought us all running. He'd been stabbed in the back"

Who had the effrontery to fatally stab James Winter, a mild and highly respectable London solicitor, as he was inoffensively taking tea in his office? 

The possibilities are plentiful, but police suspicion lands on a temperamental Shakespearean actor, Joseph Dowling, whose estranged wife the old man had been representing in her divorce action. The larger-than-life star of London's latest hit production of Macbeth, Dowling not only had a motive for murder, he had a dagger to draw as well. These actors!

Now it may well be the last act for Dowling in his newest role-criminal defendant-unless brilliant barrister-sleuth Antony Maitland and his famed courtroom performer uncle, Sir Nicholas Harding, can put the spotlight on the real killer in this, Sara Woods' highly-praised debut detective novel.

This gripping courtroom drama from 1962 features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

"This is just the sort of book I enjoy - a good detective story, with human characters and told with freshness and an amusing good humor." - Francis Iles, author of Malice Aforethought