The Poisonous Solicitor: The True Story of a 1920s Murder Mystery

In 1922, Major Herbert Armstrong, a Hay-on-Wye solicitor, was found guilty of, and executed for, poisoning his wife, Katharine, with arsenic.

Armstrong’s case has all the ingredients of a classic murder mystery, from a plot by Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers (indeed some aspects of his story appear in Sayers’ Unnatural Death). It is a near-perfect whodunnit.

One hundred years later, Agatha Award-shortlisted Stephen Bates examines and retells the story of the case, evoking the period and atmosphere of the early 1920s, a time of newspaper sensationalism, hypocrisy and sanctimonious morality.

‘Meticulously researched … a gloriously engaging romp revolving around a knotty case that boasts all the ingredients a crime fiction fan could hope for.’ - The Times