The Pursued

Description

A dark, gripping 1930s psychological thriller of revenge, intrigue and obsession Marjorie had never seen a dead body until she got home one summer evening and found her sister with her head in the oven. She looked peaceful, as if she was asleep. Their mother suspects, however, that Dot's death was far from natural - and that she knows who the killer is. Slowly and meticulously, she plots her terrible revenge. C. S. Forester's 1935 thriller The Pursued, lost for decades, rewrote the traditions of crime fiction to create a dark, twisted portrayal of obsession and retribution.

Cecil Scott Forester was the pen name of Cecil Louis Troughton Smith (27 August 1899 - 2 April 1966), an English novelist who rose to fame with tales of naval warfare. His most notable works were the 11-book Horatio Hornblower series, depicting a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic era, and The African Queen (1935; filmed in 1951 by John Huston). His novels A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours were jointly awarded the 1938 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. He began his career with the crime novels Payment Deferred and Plain Murder, now reissued in Penguin Modern Classics along with The Pursued, which was lost for over 60 years.

C. S. Forester is a splendid storyteller * Guardian * I recommend Forester to every literate I know -- Ernest Hemingway The Pursued is a wonderful, almost miraculous discovery: a hitherto unknown crime novel by an author who is the unsung godfather of English noir * Andrew Taylor * Forester has a great eye and a subtle understanding of the dangerous passions lurking just beneath the surface of everyday life. A riveting read. * Sarah Waters * a tale of very English murder, it foreshadows the unease of metropolitan life in its near-contemporaries, George Orwell's Coming Up for Air, Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square and Graham Greene's Brighton Rock -- Adrian Turpin * Financial Times * A brilliant tale of twisted minds in suburban Thirties London * Daily Telegraph * Skilful and chilling ... a tense psychological drama * Sunday Times * Murder, lust, obsession, retribution, they're all here * Daily Mail * Exposes the passions that lurk behind the net curtains of lower-middle-class suburbia ... teeming with atmosphere * The Times *