Man of Gold

For a respectable governess like Harriet Unwin, her first few weeks in the shabby, inhospitable home of the Partingtons were as unhappy as any she could remember. The bone-chilling cold, the grim sparseness of the meals, the embittered meanness of old Mr Partington: but for the kindness shown by his son, her spirit must surely have been crushed.But worse was to come for Harriet. Her chance discovery of the old man's cherished secret was, she felt sure, the cause of the attack that finally stilled his heart. The doctor, however, thought otherwise. It was neither illness nor old age that killed poor Mr Partington. It was poison...

Evelyn Hervey was the pseudonym of H. R. F. Keating used to publish three novels with Weidenfeld in the mid-eighties. Keating was born at St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, in 1926. He went to Merchant Taylors, leaving early to work in the engineering department of the BBC. After a period of service in the army, which he describes as 'totally undistinguished', he went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he became a scholar in modern languages. He was also the crime books reviewer for The Times for fifteen years. His first novel about Inspector Ghote, The Perfect Murder, won the Gold Dagger of the Crime Writers Association and an Edgar Allen Poe Special Award.