The Woman in Black

When Sigsbee Manderson, the most feared financier on Wall Street, is found dead in the garden of his English country estate, the business world trembles. A bullet in the brain, bruises on his wrist, blood on his clothes, but no clear suspect emerges from the wreckage of his powerful life. Into this vacuum steps Philip Trent: a portrait artist, a gentleman, and an amateur detective whose cheerful charm masks a ferociously sharp mind. Trent doesn't need a badge. He needs only newspapers, observation, and the boundless confidence of a man who believes every puzzle has a solution. What follows is a meticulously plotted descent into the secrets of the dead, a web of motives involving a grieving widow, a resentful partner, and financial dealings darker than the City of London ever admits. But beware: this is no ordinary whodunit. Bentley saves his cruelest trick for the final pages, and no reader emerges unchanged. Part satire of the detective genre, part genuine masterpiece of suspense.