Before the fact

Following the success of Malice Aforethought, novelist Anthony Berkeley Cox returned to his Francis Iles pen-name for another experiment in the inverted mystery. Where Malice Aforethought is a study of murder from the perpetrator's perspective, Before the Fact is a masterful tale of the suspicions of a possible victim and her impressions of disquieting husband Johnnie.Unsettling and gripping for its incisive portrayal of human emotion and fears, this experimental classic of crime fiction was the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's film Suspicion, but remains an arresting literary read today.