Book description
“Middlecombe buzzes with rumours. Like a wasp’s nest,” warned her odd
train companion. “Slanders rather. Our poison-tongue. None of us is
safe.”
When undergraduate Althea Swinford moves to sleepy Middlecombe to
study, she quickly finds herself embroiled in the town’s hotbed of
gossip and scandal. Beneath the respectable veneer of the town, dark
secrets lurk, and a when a cold-blooded murder threatens to explode the
surrounding myths and mysteries, Althea is immersed, over her head.
Originally published in 1972, Death of a Poison-Tongue
finds acclaimed crime novelist Josephine Bell at the height of her
powers. Josephine Bell was born Doris Bell Collier in Manchester,
England. Between 1910 and 1916 she studied at Godolphin School, then
trained at Newnham College, Cambridge until 1919. At the University
College Hospital in London she was granted M. R.C. S. and L. R.C. P. in
1922, and a M. B. B. S. in 1924.
Bell was a prolific author, writing forty-three novels and numerous
uncollected short stories during a forty-five year period.
Many of her short stories appeared in the London Evening Standard
. Using her pen name she wrote numerous detective novels beginning in
1936, and she was well-known for her medical mysteries. Her early books
featured the fictional character Dr. David Wintringham who worked at
Research Hospital in London as a junior assistant physician. She helped
found the Crime Writers' Association in 1953 and served as chair during
1959-60.
