Before the Fact by Frances Iles

I have a confession to make. I love Alfred Hitchcock films. Love them! It all started when I was introduced to Rebecca, by my mum when I was about 10 years old, or so. After that I was hooked! I watched all of the films I could get my hands on and, along the way, the films inspired my reading. My love of Daphne du Maurier’s writing grew out of watching Hitchcock’s film adaptations of Rebecca and “The Birds”. 

It should come as no surprise then that I was extremely keen to read Francis Iles' Before the Fact, the book that inspired the Hitchcock film Suspicion. It’s one of my favourites. Black and white, and staring Joan Fontaine and Cary Grant. It’s subtle. It’s moody. And never did a glass of milk look more menacing! (Did you know the spooky glow of the milk in that scene was achieved by putting a lightbulb in the glass?)

Expectations were high when I started reading Before the Fact and I am pleased to report that this book did not disappoint! It grabbed me from the first lines.

“Some women give birth to murderers, some go to bed with them, and some marry them. Lina Aysgarth had lived with her husband for nearly eight years before she realized that she was married to a murderer.” (17)

Twenty-eight-year-old, Lina McLaidlaw meets, Johnnie Aysgarth, a man one year her junior. He is flattering, charismatic, and just plain fun. Lina doesn’t know what to make of him. Does he like her or are his attentions nothing more than a flirtation? Regardless, Lina has fallen for him and despite her father’s warnings that Johnnie is a ne’er-do-well, the two soon marry.

What follows is the suspenseful story of an overly trusting woman navigating her marriage to a charismatic and less than trustworthy man. He gambles. He cheats. He lies. He is a layabout. He breaks his promises. He repeatedly waves red flags with both hands, but still Lina stubbornly chooses to see the best in him. It takes eight years before she sees her husband for who he really is, and the journey is tense!

Johnnie leaned back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, rubbed its silk-covered ankle, and laughed as if this was all the greatest joke in the world. ‘Not a cent!' he repeated. I thought you'd better know,' he added.

‘Well, I should hope so,’ Lina said tartly. And after a pause, as calmly as she could, 'What do you intend to do about it?' Already she saw them begging their bread, from house to house.

'Oh, I don't know. I expect something will turn up. It always does.' (47)

This scene comes just after the couple have returned from a lavish honeymoon. Lina discovers that not only does Johnnie not have a cent to his name, he borrowed a thousand pounds to fund their honeymoon and let a house with eight bedrooms, fully furnished and decorated, without paying for any of it. When she asks him why he took a house far bigger than they need, his nonchalant response is, “I like plenty of rooms” (47). That in a nutshell sums up Johnnie’s approach to life. He doesn’t allow himself to worry too much about where the next pound will come from because there is always a way of getting your hands on some. But he certainly isn’t about to work it. Heaven forbid!

This book has light points, as well. An old school friend of Johnnie’s, Mr. Thwaite, comes to visit and proves to be something straight out of a P.G. Wodehouse novel, as Lina points out to the reader. It’s all “old bean” this and “what?” that and “what ho!” galore. Of course, even Beaky Thwaite becomes a point of contention between the couple. Lina grows to hate him. Likely, because she suspects Johnnie is going to steal from the man, and she can’t hate Johnnie no matter how hard she might try. Not that she is trying.

Suspicion is a tenuous thing, so impalpable that the exact moment of its birth is not easy to determine. But looking back over the series of little pictures which composed the memory of her married life, Lina found later that certain of them - a small incident here, its significance quite unnoticed at the time, an unimportant action there, perhaps just a chance word of her husband's - had become illuminated by her fear so that they stood out like a row of street lamps along a dark, straight road: a road which looks so easy in the daytime, but so sinister by night. (17)

Lina goes on to tell the reader that from the perspective she has now, even her first meeting with Johnnie seemed “a red triangle of danger whose warning she had deliberately ignored” (17). 

This is, in part, why I think Before the Fact would make for a very enjoyable reread. Once you reach the ending you can’t help but wonder if Johnnie has managed to pull the wool over your eyes, along with his wife’s. 

So how did Before the Fact stack up against the film adaptation? From the beginning I was so impressed with how true a representation we get of Johnnie through the film script and in the casting. Cary Grant was Iles’ Johnnie, as much as he was Hitchcock’s. Johnnie blurs the lines between naivety and knowingness, deceiving while being innocent as a child, and all the while he is charming and playful. The character must also be loveable in order to break down Lina’s barriers, so that she always ends up doubting herself before she doubts Johnnie. Cary Grant pulls all of this off with style, as one would expect. 

The same is true for Lina. Joan Fontaine is a great fit. Lina is a very similar character to Mrs. De Winter from Rebecca. It’s no wonder Joan Fontaine was cast in both roles. Lina falls for Johnnie from the start, and as a woman who has been led to believe she is plain, she is perhaps even more susceptible to Johnnie’s charms than most. While she suspects Johnnie of gambling and repeatedly says she will leave him if he doesn’t quit. Johnnie knows just as well as the reader that the threats are empty.

Whether you have watched the Hitchcock film or not, I think you will be pleasantly surprised by this book. It’s quite the ride! By the end, I just about wanted Iles to put me out of my misery and wrap it up already. The tension reaches such a fever pitch! I know I will be returning to this one again, before too long. I would love to read more books by Francis Iles, Anthony Berkeley, or any of Anthony Berkeley Cox’s other pen names.

Thank you to British Library Publishing for kindly sending me a copy of Before the Fact for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own.