Death by Sheer Torture (1981), also known simply as Sheer Torture, is a mystery novel by English writer Robert Barnard, the first of five novels, penned in the 1980s, featuring his recurring detective character Perry Trethowan.
Death by Sheer Torture (1981), also known simply as Sheer Torture, is a mystery novel by English writer Robert Barnard, the first of five novels, penned in the 1980s, featuring his recurring detective character Perry Trethowan.
Police detective Perry Trethowan suffers a terminal embarrassment when his estranged, aristocratic father is found dead atop a Strappado-style torture device of his own design. Even more humiliating is the revelation that he was wearing spangled tights at the time, exacerbating Perry's fear that he will be mocked about this case for the rest of his life. However, any hopes he may have had of fading quietly into the background are halted when his superiors force him to lead the investigation, and so he soon finds himself in search of a killer amongst the eccentric relatives he thought he had left behind years ago.
The novel received mostly positive reviews from critics and sold well.
Another of the author's unfailingly entertaining forays into crime. One of the most inventive writers of detective fiction today. – Westlake
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Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as speculative fiction and other genre fiction in the mid-nineteenth century and has remained extremely popular, particularly in novels. Some of the most famous heroes of detective fiction include C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and Hercule Poirot. Juvenile stories featuring The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children have also remained in print for several decades.
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A whodunit or whodunnit is a complex plot-driven variety of detective fiction in which the puzzle regarding who committed the crime is the main focus. The reader or viewer is provided with the clues to the case, from which the identity of the perpetrator may be deduced before the story provides the revelation itself at its climax. The investigation is usually conducted by an eccentric, amateur, or semi-professional detective.
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Alan Sharp was a Scottish novelist and screenwriter. He published two novels in the 1960s, and subsequently wrote the screenplays for about twenty films, mostly produced in the United States.
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