A Scandal in Belgravia - Softcover

Robert Barnard, who, with his wife Louise, currently makes his home in Yorkshire, was born in Essex on 23 November, 1936. Educated at the Royal Grammar School in Colchester and at Balliol College, Oxford, taking his Ph.D. from the University of Bergen, Norway, in 1972, he spent many years as a distinguished academic while establishing himself as one of today’s most distinguished crime writers. His fascination with the pure detective story is evident in his many novels and short stories, as is his remarkable catholicity of tastes. The Guest of Honor at 1998’s Malice Domestic mystery conference, recipient of the CWA’s Golden Handcuffs Award, several times nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award, Barnard maintains he writes only to entertain. It is hardly fair that a man aso gifted as a writer should be equally skilled as a speaker, but so it is. Barnard has graced many literary events, delivered many fine lectures, and generously boosted the works of authors he admires. Nowhere is his won talent to deceive better showcased than in his 1991 clasic, A Scandal in Belgravia.

"While writing his memoirs, ex-cabinet minister Peter Proctor questions the 35-year-old unsolved murder of Timothy Wycliffe, his good friend and colleague in the Foreign Office. Soon diverted by fond memories of this engaging and fully alive fellow--who happened to be gay--he researches the murder, questions Timothy's friends, family, and lovers, finally reconstructs the murder, and confronts the murderer. Barnard once again shows a masterful grasp of character and plot, immerses the reader in serious political and social atmosphere, and then throws a last hook shot. Great stuff." -Library Journal

"Barnard once again shows a masterful grasp of character and plot, immerses the reader in serious political and social atmostphere, and then throws a last hook shot. Great stuff." -Publishers Weekly

"Ever-versatile Barnard (A City of Strangers, etc.) gives us a low-keyed story told by wryly self-deprecating widower and ex- cabinet minister Peter Proctor, now retired and writing memoirs that even he finds boring--until his memory of Timothy Wycliffe is revived. Timothy, son of a prominent politician, was a brilliant charmer, a promiscuous, not very closeted homosexual at a time when that could mean a jail sentence in England. He and Proctor were friends, not lovers, and worked together at the Foreign Office. Then, 30 years ago, at the height of the Suez crisis, Timothy was murdered--according to the police, by his Scottish pal Andrew Forbes, who took off for Spain and was never tried. Here, Proctor is haunted by a feeling that Forbes may have been innocent and sets out to find the truth. The search takes him to Forbes's sister, to Los Angeles, where his own son and grandson live, and finally to Wycliffe's aristocratic family and his still-living father. What he discovers is a shocker--and there's another yet to come. The reader may doubt the ability of Proctor and other characters to recall in detail 30-year-old conversations and events, but Proctor's story is quietly engrossing all the way to its jolting conclusion." -Kirkus Reviews

"Sardonic wit and crystalline prose...insight into the vagaries of human behavior that is rare." -Philidelphia Inquirer