JUNE WRIGHT – So Bad a Death
June Wright burst onto the scene in 1948 with Murder in the Telephone Exchange, the best-selling mystery in Australia that year. When she died in 2012, it was out of print, along with her other excellent mysteries. But when Dark Passage reissued Murder in the Telephone Exchange in 2014, Wright was hailed by the Sydney Morning Herald as “our very own Agatha Christie,” and a new generation of readers fell in love with her inimitable blend of intrigue, wit, and psychological suspense – not to mention her sharp-eyed – and equally sharp-tongued – sleuth, Maggie Byrnes. And here comes the sequel . . .
Maggie Byrnes makes a memorable return to the fray in So Bad a Death. She’s married now, and living in a quiet Melbourne suburb. But violent death dogs her footsteps even in apparently tranquil Middleburn. It’s no great surprise when a widely disliked local bigwig (who also happens to be her landlord) is shot dead, but Maggie suspects someone is also targeting the infant who is his heir. Her compulsion to investigate puts everyone she loves in danger.
June Wright’s original title for this book was Who Would Murder a Baby? Her publishers blanched at that, but under any title it’s a thrilling sequel to Murder in the Telephone -Exchange. This edition includes a new introduction by Lucy Sussex, plus a fascinating interview she conducted with the author in 1996.
“A queen of crime in the tradition of Dorothy L Sayers and Margery Allingham.”—The Age
“She writes well and excitingly . . . [with] a neat sense of humour and an extremely suspenseful atmosphere . . . The irrepressible Maggie is probably the most candid woman in contemporary crime.”—The Mail (Adelaide)
