Description

---

Retired merchant Horatio Leavenworth is found dead in his study, shot dead while sitting at his desk. Ebeneezer Gryce begins an investigation into Leavenworth's violent death, uncovering an array of suspects and motives. Anna Katharine Green's classic novel was enormously influential, with Gryce becoming the first detective to appear in a long-running series of mysteries, predating Sherlock Holmes' first appearance by nine years. The novel is responsible for inovating many tropes of the genre including a locked room murder, ballistics, an incriminating letter, a changed will, a second murder and an exciting denouement.