The Bell of Death

The Bell of Death is a 1939 mystery detective novel by Anthony Gilbert, the pen name of British writer Lucy Beatrice Malleson.

[1] It is the sixth in her long-running series featuring the unscrupulous London lawyer and detective Arthur Crook.

Reviewing it for the Times Literary Supplement, Maurice Percy Ashley commented "as usual with Mr. Gilbert’s stories this is exciting and well written, but it is so complicated that the reader can do little more than hold his breath".

When a vagrant is found dead in the belfry of a London church, suspicion falls on the verger, who has disappeared.

Solicitor Arthur Crook promises his wife to clear his name as soon as he is found.