Past Praying For

"Arsenic." She paused to consider the adequacy of the statement.

"One large dose, certainly. Rice pudding. Arguable whether there'd been any before."

Is beautiful Camilla Barnard a black widow who put a pair of husbands into their graves? In 1957 Camilla was found guilty of the shooting death of her first spouse, Tony Barnard, and sentenced to four years in prison. Now, eight years later, she is on trial for the poisoning murder of husband number two, the late Tony's cousin Oliver Barnard. In a strange twist, Antony Maitland, who helped prosecute Camilla her first crime around, is now assisting in her defence, which is led by Antony's brilliant uncle, Sir Nicholas Harding and assisted by formidable Vera Langhorne (Let's Choose Executors). Was it Camilla who put the arsenic in her husband's rice pudding, or is there some other culprit lurking in the wings? Antony comes to suspect that the double widow may be innocent not just of one murder, but of two, and that the truth is more shocking that anyone--besides himself, of course--suspects.

This gripping courtroom drama from 1968 features a new introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.