E C Bentley

The Woman in Black (Illustrated) E C Bentley

Trent's Last Case is a detective novel written by E. C. Bentley and first published in the United Kingdom in 1913, and as The Woman in Black in the United States also in 1913. Its central character is the artist and amateur detective Philip Trent. Despite the title, Trent's Last Case is the first novel in which he appears. He subsequently reappeared in the novel Trent's Own Case (1936) and the short-story collection Trent Intervenes (1938). The novel is a whodunit with a place in detective fiction history because it is the first major send-up of that genre. Not only does Trent fall in love with one of the primary suspects - usually considered off-limits - he also, after painstakingly collecting all the evidence, draws all the wrong conclusions.