The House without the Door

From Agatha Christie’s favorite American author—an amateur sleuth helps a Manhattan widow who fears her husband’s killer is stalking her.

Acquitted of murdering her wealthy husband, Mrs. Vina Gregson remains essentially a prisoner, trapped in her elegant New York apartment with occasional furtive forays to her Connecticut estate. A jury may have found her innocent, but Mrs. Gregson remains a murderess in the eyes of the public and of the tabloid journalists who hound her every step. She has recently begun receiving increasingly menacing letters written, she is certain, by the person who killed her husband. Taking the matter to the police would heighten her notoriety, so she calls on antiquarian bookseller and handwriting expert Henry Gamadge, the gentleman-sleuth who is known for both his discretion and his ability to solve problems that baffle the police.

“Henry Gamadge is one of the most civilized detectives in fiction . . . you’ll have a hard time finding better reading.” —New York Times