Requiem for Robert

'When a man has three separate notices by three different women inserted in the local paper, and he's my own namesake besides, I feel I owe him something.' Sequential death notices appear for Robert Raynald: one by his mother, one by his estranged wife, one by his daughter. This odd approach draws the attention of Superintendent Mallett and his friend Dr. Fitzbrown. The inquest had decided that Raynald shot himself whilst temporarily insane, but his daughter Geraldine is not convinced and presents enough evidence to arouse the investigator within Mallett. Raynald's story is presented in flashbacks, as Mallett and Fitzbrown build a picture of his life through the people who knew him best. Requiem for Robert combines the excitement of a detective story with a haunting reading of character. Mary Fitt was the pseudonym of Kathleen Freeman (1897–1959), a classical scholar who taught Greek at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire in Cardiff. Beginning in 1937, Freeman wrote twenty-nine mysteries and a number of short stories as Mary Fitt, and was elected to the Detection Club in 1950. Aside from her detective novels, Freeman published many books on classical Greece, scholarly articles and children's stories. She lived in St Mellons in Wales with her partner Dr Liliane Marie Catherine Clopet, a family physician and author.