Trent's Last Case - Couverture souple

When a scheming American capitalist is found dead in the garden of his English country house, two immediate matters confound amateur detective Philip Trent: why is the dead man not wearing his false teeth and why is his young widow seemingly relieved at his death? The newly widowed Mabel Manderson the lady in black has a disarming effect on the refreshingly fallible and imaginative Trent, in this classic detective story that twists and turns as a result of the irresistible combination of ingenious deductions and misplaced assumptions.

The fun of this book lies in the fact that Bentley's shrewd, suave, likeable investigator, Philip Trent, gets everything right but the motive for the murder of a wealthy financier. A love story parallels the murder investigation, and there we too watch Trent leap to the wrong conclusion. The tone of this classic is light, the plot, adroit, and the surprise ending ever so smooth.