THE WOMAN IN BLACK

Trent's Last Case published as The Woman in Black in the United States, in 1913, is a detective novel written by E. C. Bentley. Its central character is the artist and amateur detective Philip Trent. It is the first novel Philip Trent appears in, and is a whodunit with a place in detective fiction history because it is the first major send-up of that genre. Not only does Trent fall in love with one of the primary suspects – usually considered off-limits – he also, after painstakingly collecting all the evidence, draws all the wrong conclusions. Convinced that he has tracked down the killer of a business tycoon who was killed in his mansion, during dinner he is told by the real culprit what errors in the logical deduction of the solution to the crime he committed. Hearing what really happened, Trent vows that he will never again attempt to dabble in crime detection.