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""It had sometimes seemed to Maitland, in the course of his researches, that there was nothing original left to be done when it came to extracting poisonous substances from the hedgerow; they were all there, foxglove and monkshood and deadly nightshade, and man's ingenuity more than sufficient to exploit their murderous qualities, even if he had been a little slow to split the atom or find a cure for the common cold."" Antony Maitland has just concluded a case in the West Midlands town of Chedcombe when he is implored by gruff local lady barrister Vera Langhorne to lead the defense of Fran Gifford, a pretty legal secretary charged with the poisoning murder of her wealthy, elderly godmother, Alice Randall. Initially skeptical-""Miss Langhorne's a genuine dragon,"" he tells his wife Jenny on the phone, ""I don't want to get to get scorched.""-Antony decides to get involved after talking in prison to Fran and believing against the evidence in the young woman's innocence. But Chedcombe, it seems, does not take kindly to interference from hotshot lawyer outsiders like Antony. In his trickiest, most intricate case yet, the brilliant barrister finds that this insular Midlands town may prove even more dangerous and deadly than London. ""Interesting characters, including a woman lawyer, are plentiful, and the dénouement is brought off in the finest British Perry Mason style."" Alice Cromie, Chicago Tribune ""Very fine, both in detection and legal work."" Frances Crane, Santa Fe New Mexican

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Sara Woods, the pen name of Eileen Mary Lana Hutton Bowen Judd, was bornin 1916 in Bradford, Yorkshire. She was the daughter of Francis Burton Hutton, a garage proprietor and Sara Roberta Woods, the daughter of a buyer for an engineering firm.In 1946 she married electrical engineer Anthony George Bowen Judd. Following a dozen years of farming in rural Yorkshire, the couple moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1958, where Sara began her prolific mystery writing career. She became well-known for her detective series featuring canny barrister Antony Maitland - a character inspired by her beloved older brother, Antony Woods Hutton, a promising young solicitor who was tragically killed in 1941 at the age of 33 when as a Royal Air Force pilot in the Second World War his plane was shot down during action in Egypt.Sara Woods' detective novels were celebrated for their intricate plots and the authenticity of their courtroom settings and they garnered a longtime, loyal readership. Sara passed away at the age of 69 on November 6, 1985, leaving behind her a rich legacy of four dozen Antony Maitland mysteries.

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