Death in a Little Town: A Matilda Perks Mystery - Paperback

by R. C. Woodthorpe (Author)

A Matilda Perks Mystery

The English countryside; bucolic, rustic, peaceful. Peaceful, that is, until the body of Douglas Bonar is discovered with its head bashed in. Not that "Squire" Bonar would be greatly missed, for Bonar was an outsider - a rude, overbearing, self-made man from up North who rubbed most people the wrong way and furthermore had had the audacity to try trample on that most cherished of country freedoms, the right of passage on an ancient footpath. Bonar's murder, and the subsequent investigation, would roil the placid surface of the town of Chesworth, for Chesworth, as most such towns, has its share of secrets which people wish to remain buried. There is one person in town, however - the retired schoolmistress Miss Perks - who seems to know all these secrets. Does she know who killed Douglas Bonar?

Author Biography

Ralph Charles Woodthorpe (1886-1971) was a British author who wrote eight mysteries in the 1930s, including The Public School Murder (1932), A Dagger in Fleet Street (1934), Death Wears a Purple Shirt (1934), Death in a Little Town (1935), The Shadow on the Downs (1935), The Necessary Corpse (1939), Rope for a Convict (1939), and Put Out That Light (1940). Many of these are set in small towns in the south of England. Several feature Matilda Perks, a retired schoolmistress, and The Public School Murder was made into a television episode in the UK. It is interesting to note that Woodthorpe was himself a teacher of English and that one of his pupils was Philip Carter, the husband of the mystery writer Margery Allingham.