Sara Woods took her barrister protagonist Antony Maitland out of the courtroom for his fourth adventure, Error of the Moon (Collins Crime Club, 1963; Dean Street Press, 2024). Considering the state of geopolitics in the early 1960s, when the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the edge of nuclear war and Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels were at their most popular, it is not surprising that espionage found its way into several of Woods’ books at the time.
The Full Moon Project at the Carcroft Works of General Aircraft Limited in Yorkshire is working hard on an anti-missile missile, something everyone hopes the nation won’t need but many fear will be essential to her safety. Some of the plans disappeared and then appeared again a day later, and one of the team members was killed in what was thought to be a traffic accident during a heavy fog. Another employee says someone has gone through his papers. Nothing seems to be missing but they are not in the order he left them.
Antony’s work in Intelligence during the war and since then is well known in certain circles. Word gets to the Carcroft managers who ask him to join the firm as a new employee to investigate quietly. With just a few people who have access and knowledge of the entire project, the pool of suspects is limited and grows smaller when another one is killed. This time there is no question of accidental death and the police become involved.
Followers of the series will miss the usual supporting characters: Maitland’s uncle Nicholas Harding, the irritable butler Gibbs, the senior clerk in chambers Mr. Mallory. While Maitland’s wife Jenny accompanies him to the Yorkshire site, she is conspicuous by her absence most of the time. Either readers will enjoy the change of scene and Maitland as undercover investigator or loathe it, there really is no middle ground.
Dean Street Press, that champion of forgotten authors, has undertaken to reprint the entire set of Antony Maitland courtroom mysteries, all 48 of them. This series has unaccountably remained out of print for an unconscionable length of time. Written by Sara Woods (1922–1985), an English author who began writing after she moved to Canada, using her experience as a solicitor’s clerk as background, her main character is Antony Maitland, a barrister in his early thirties when the series opens. His wartime experience was in intelligence operations and he carried the investigative abilities he developed then into his legal career. DSP released the first five titles of the series in December 2024. I am looking forward to acquiring the entire set to replace my sadly worn copies.