Rasp - Paperback

by Philip MacDonald (Author)

If the Scarpetta Cast on Prime Video has sharpened your appetite for investigator-driven crime, The Rasp delivers one of the most satisfying puzzle whodunits in classic British fiction.

A cabinet minister is found battered to death with a woodworking rasp in the library of his country house, and Scotland Yard swiftly pins the crime on the victim's own secretary.

Anthony Gethryn - ex - secret service agent, occasional newspaper correspondent, and nobody's idea of a cooperative bystander - is certain they have the wrong man.

Proving it means dismantling a ring of cast-iron alibis, weighing physical evidence with methodical precision, and outthinking a killer concealed inside a closed circle of guests and household staff.

Set in rural England during the golden age of detective fiction, the novel pairs the procedural tension and forensic-style rigor that fuel modern screen thrillers with the atmosphere and ingenuity of a 1930s country-house mystery.

Gethryn's covert-operations instincts and sharp, scholarly intellect - part spy, part academic - give him a distinctive edge as an amateur sleuth, and the way he reads a crime scene will feel familiar to anyone drawn to investigator-led storytelling.

This is the first case in his long-running series, and it delivers a genuinely surprising solution built on fair clues and careful misdirection. "An ingenious murder mystery." - Kine Weekly - "A very puzzling case and clever solution." - Arm Chair Reviewer.