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136 pages

English

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Harry Devlin is hired by the Kavanaugh Trust to contest the will of their late patron. Charles Kavanaugh has left everything to his new housekeeper, Vera Blackhurst. Then the current Chairman of the Trust is found dead, fallen from a third-floor hotel window. Did he jump or was he pushed?

Sujets

Thriller

Informations

Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	13 septembre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781781662830
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The Devil In Disguise
Book six of the Harry Devlin series
Martin Edwards

First published in 1998
This revised edition published in 2021 by
Acorn Books
www.acornbooks.co.uk
Digital edition converted and distributed by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 1998, 2021 Martin Edwards
Introduction Copyright © 2021 Andrew Taylor
The right of Martin Edwards to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Introduction
There is something mysterious, not to say suspicious, about Martin Edwards. How does he do so much? Leaving aside his highly successful legal career, which would be more than enough for most people, he’s the author of the critically-acclaimed Lake District mysteries, one of which was shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. His other books include a perceptive re-examination of the Crippen case in the form of a novel, a true crime book and a collection of some of his 40-odd short stories, one of which won the Dagger award of the Crime Writers’ Association. He has a third career as an editor and critic on the crime fiction genre. And then of course there are his legal books and more than a thousand articles, many of them concerning his professional speciality, which is employment law.
This crowded and nauseatingly distinguished curriculum vitae has one important omission: the Harry Devlin crime series, which features a Liverpool solicitor with a propensity for stumbling into murder cases. These were Martin Edwards’ first published novels. On both sides of the Atlantic, there’s a long tradition of lawyers moonlighting with crime fiction – and often writing novels with legal backgrounds. From the very start, however, Martin Edwards stood out among such lawyer-authors, even in a crowd that includes Erle Stanley Gardener and Michael Gilbert, Frances Fyfield and John Grisham.
Reviewers instantly recognised this – the first Harry Devlin novel, All The Lonely People, was shortlisted for the CWA’s John Creasey Memorial Dagger for the best first crime novel in 1991. The book had three particular strengths: its lovingly knowledgeable portrait of Liverpool; Martin Edwards’ quietly revolutionary refusal to follow the then-current trend for portraying overt violence in crime fiction; and the strength of the characterisation, in particular Harry himself – damaged, endearing, intelligent and obstinately attached to the notion of justice.
Since then, the series has gone from strength to strength. The pop songs of the Sixties provide titles for all the books, giving them an added resonance for readers old enough to remember the songs when they were hit singles. After a gap of some years, the eighth novel in the series, Waterloo Sunset, appeared in 2008.
The series isn’t frozen in time – both Harry and Liverpool have changed over the years. In the modern world it’s not easy to create a credible amateur detective. But Harry is convincing, perhaps because he lacks the superheroic qualities of the amateur sleuths of the Golden Age crime fiction. He is a very British hero. It’s a cause for celebration that he is still flourishing today.
Originally published in 1998, The Devil In Disguise is the sixth title in the series – though don’t let this put you off reading it if you haven’t yet read the earlier books; like all the Devlin novels, this works just as well as a standalone. The story focuses on the Kavanaugh Trust, a Liverpool arts charity, which hires Harry to deal with the vexed question of a benefactor’s will – a will that unexpectedly does not benefit the Trust. Then Luke Dessaur, the chairman of the Trust, vanishes; and when he reappears, fallen from the third-floor window of a hotel, he is very dead indeed.
Martin Edwards draws his readers – and the unfortunate Harry – into a tangle of villainy. As ever, the novel is a cunning mix of contemporary and traditional ingredients. However dark the story, however, it is characteristic of Edwards’ writing that an undercurrent of dry humour is often just perceptible. Watch out for the Liverpool’s gentlemen’s club, for example, the oldest in the country and equipped with the splendid collection of pornography in its members-only library. There’s also a certain nostalgic pleasure in the Speckled Band, a bookshop devoted to crime fiction. In those days, London boasted three bookshops dedicated to crime fiction – indeed, Martin and I shared a book-launch in one of them when this novel was first published. Time and the internet has put paid to all three of them.
Still, time and the internet has its advantages too: thanks to their mysterious workings, The Devil In Disguise has become available again. When I reviewed the novel on first publication in 1998, I concluded that it was ‘literate, quirky and intelligent... psychologically plausible and intelligently plotted.’ Thirteen years later, I stand by the verdict but I’d like to add a rider to it: The Devil In Disguise reads even better the second time around than it did the first.
Andrew Taylor

Prologue
He had dreamed of this .
Her parting words echoed around the cellar. ‘Don’t go away.’
As if he would. As if he could. Listening to her high heels click-click-click up the stone steps, he smiled to himself. He could have sworn he heard her choke back a grunt of pleasure at the prospect of what lay in store. The door closed behind her: was that a key turning in the lock, or just wishful thinking? He had always wanted to be her prisoner. And tonight his imagination was working overtime .
The steel handcuffs were cutting into his wrists, but for him the sensation was exquisite. At last she had consented to play the game. She seemed different, somehow, as if the fantasy excited her as much as he had ever hoped .
Waiting for her return, he stretched his limbs. She had snapped the other half of each pair of cuffs around the hooks set into the wall a little above head height. He let his mind wander. This was an old room; perhaps eighteenth-century merchants had once tethered their own slaves here. Those poor devils would not have chosen such a fate, but he luxuriated in it. He could move his trunk and legs, feel the warmth of the sheepskin rug against his feet. Presently she would release him and they would make love with wild passion .
Although he was in the heart of Liverpool, he might have been marooned on a Pacific atoll for all that he was aware of the world above ground. It was night-time in the city, but he could hear no voices or traffic noise, nothing but the faint buzz of an unseen fly. The air was damp and musty but he did not care. This was as close to heaven as he was ever likely to come .
The fly landed on his chest and he blew it off. She was taking her time, he thought. Impossible to understand: she had promised to be back within a minute, once she had checked that the front door was locked. They did not want any unexpected callers, not tonight of all nights .
He opened his eyes and tried adjusting to the gloom. An unshaded bulb glowed overhead, but most of the room was in deep shadow. Straight ahead, she had propped the dusty old mirror. All the better to see everything with, she had said. She had written something in lipstick on the splintered surface of the glass and he craned his neck so that he could read it .
YOU KILLED HIM, YOU BASTARD
It was as though a donkey had kicked him in the balls. He blinked once, twice, unable to believe the message in the words. Was his mind playing games of its own? He screwed up his eyes so hard that the muscles hurt and looked again .
YOU KILLED HIM, YOU BASTARD
It couldn’t be true. She was teasing him. He sucked the moist air into his lungs and held his breath, telling himself that she was on her way back, that it was all some kind of joke. But in the end he had to exhale .
Slowly, experimentally, he tried to move his wrists. The handcuffs did not give. His skin was beginning to itch. The unseen fly was buzzing in the shadows, as if in mocking reminder that it was free .
Time passed. His breath was coming in short shallow gasps . He did not understand what was happening. Everything had seemed so perfect. Yet now he was limp and cold and afraid. And the heaven he had dreamed of had turned into his own private hell .

Part One
Chapter 1
A solitary candle lit the darkness, allowing Harry Devlin to see the man in crimson robes. The sickly smell of incense hung in the air. The high priest was standing in front of the altar, his arm raised. As the flame flickered, Harry caught sight of a gleaming blade.
‘Blood is the sacred life-force in both man and beast,’ a disembodied voice intoned. ‘The rite of sacrifice enables gods to live and thus man and nature may survive.’
A small bundle lay trussed up on the altar. The whimper of a child cut through the silence. Harry’s stomach lurched and instinctively he took a pace forward. Suddenly he remembered where he was. He halted, feeling foolish. Why did his imagination always run away with him? He was a grown man, a solicitor of the Supreme Court, s