A Scandal in Belgravia

By Robert Barnard

A Scandal In Belgravia is a story of murder; it is also a penetrating analysis of a decaying social class and a society in transition. And it is the personal, deeply moving story of two men, Peter Proctor, recently retired as a senior British cabinet minister, and Timothy Wycliffe, a young aristocrat who was bludgeoned to death more than thirty years ago.

The two had met in the early 1950s as fledgling diplomats in the Foreign Office. Wycliffe, the grandson of a marquess, had little in common with Proctor, the self-made man on his way up. But the elegant, joyful, intensely alive Wycliffe relished all kinds of people, including his very naïve and earnest middle-class colleague.

The friendship was close for a while, gradually becoming more occasional. Even Wycliffe’s murder, shocking as it was, caused relatively little impact on his friends and the national press, who were distracted that week by more momentous events in the news.

Only now, over three decades later, does Wycliffe’s brutal death become Proctor’s obsession. Relieved of his official post after a long and distinguished career, Proctor decides to write his memoirs. But beyond a banal chapter on his youth, nothing will come. Memories of Timothy Wycliffe take over his mind, pushing aside all other thoughts. It is only in probing the past, in tracking down the people who knew Wycliffe, in discovering the shocking truth of his murder, that Peter Proctor will find peace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Release date: Dec 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781447239772

Robert Barnard

Robert Barnard (1936-2013) was awarded the Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Nero Wolfe Award, as well as the Agatha and Macavity awards. An eight-time Edgar nominee, he was a member of Britain's distinguished Detection Club, and, in May 2003, he received the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement in mystery writing. 

Reviews for A Scandal in Belgravia

[johngrant1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The last book of Barnard's I read was Death of a Mystery Writer, a glorious near Colin Watson-style comedy. This book is very much more serious -- and in fact I'd claim it as a fairly substantial work of fiction, reminiscent perhaps of John le Carre, perhaps of Somerset Maugham. Retired UK civil servant Peter Proctor decides to investigate the long-ago murder of his friend Timothy Wycliffe, a crime probably covered up because of government embarrassment over Wycliffe's outrageously gay lifestyle. There are lots of good things to say about this excellent book, not least its portrayal of UK politics during British colonialism's last halfwitted hurrah, the Suez Crisis. The book's sole flaw is a stupid twist in the final few lines; forget that and read it for the brilliant rest.

[mysterymax_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is Barnard’s 24th book, and possibly his best. Peter Proctor is a retired government minister trying to write his memoirs. He is sidetracked by thoughts about the death of a friend many years before and he begins to investigate the circumstances of his friend’s death. Barnard is known for his truly well-crafted, old-fashioned British mysteries. His characters are complex but carefully drawn.

[the7ken7petersen · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A strange book: not a conventional whodunnit. Peter Proctor is a political outcast, ex-Conservative minister who, is writing his memoirs. He gets as far as the early days in the Foreign Office when a college and friend, Timothy Wycliffe, comes to mind and diverts the track of Proctor's thought to the mysterious death of Wycliffe at the height of the Suez crisis.Proctor starts to investigate a murder that occurred in his youth and soon finds that the man assumed to be the killer, Wycliffe's homosexual partner, is unlikely to have committed the crime. We wind gently to a surprising conclusion - or two!