The Avenger
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This classic thriller combines a gripping murder mystery with Gothic horror, offering a chilling exploration of obsession, deception, and the grotesque.
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Book Summary
A Foreign Office agent investigates a serial killer known as the Headhunter, whose murders are eerily mirrored in a film script. The case leads him to a decaying estate, a mysterious orangutan, and a shocking revelation about an eccentric gentleman with a gruesome ancestral legacy.
Captain Mike Brixan, an intelligence agent, is pulled from a mission in Berlin to investigate the latest victim of the Headhunter, a serial killer who decapitates his victims. His investigation intertwines with the film world when he meets struggling actress Adele Leamington, who is cast in a movie whose script pages match the killer's methods. Brixan goes undercover as a film extra to protect Adele and uncover the truth. The trail leads to Sir Gregory Penne, a wealthy aristocrat with a dark past in Borneo, and the eccentric Mr. Sampson Longvale, who lives in a dilapidated Dower House. As Brixan digs deeper, Adele is abducted by Penne and imprisoned in his tower, where she discovers a hidden cave filled with bones. The climax reveals Longvale as the Headhunter—a hereditary executioner obsessed with his ancestor's guillotine, known as 'The Widow.' In a final confrontation, Longvale attempts to execute Penne, but his trained orangutan, Bhag, turns the machine on Longvale instead. Three months later, justice is served, and Adele finds success as a leading lady.
Reading guide
Go deeper in The Avenger
Character guides, themes, chapter companions — plus Character Web, narrative arc, and theme heatmap teasers that unlock fully beside the text in BetterReads.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book.
Mike Brixan
Mike Brixan moves between two worlds: the colonial past that earned him the nickname 'the Headhunter' and the polite society of Chichester, where a murderer is quietly at work. He is cool under pressure and quick to read a lie, yet his interest in the case is not purely professional — Stella Mendoza's safety pulls him deeper than any puzzle should. His habit of acting alone, scaling walls and vanishing into the dark, makes him both the investigation's best hope and its most unpredictable element.
Stella Mendoza
Stella Mendoza has clawed her way to leading lady status on Jack Knebworth's lot, and she has no intention of surrendering it to a newcomer. When she confronts Adele Leamington with a handful of banknotes and a story about being cut from the picture, her charm drops away and something harder shows through. She is entangled with Sir Gregory Penne, a connection that makes her both useful to the investigation and dangerous to trust.
Sir Gregory Penne
Sir Gregory Penne presides over Griff Towers, a bleak house filled with stuffed tigers and three-hundred-year-old blades he keeps razor-sharp for parlour tricks. He speaks of murder as a hypothetical, watches his own words too carefully, and keeps a brown-faced servant and a monstrous ape named Bhag close at hand. Stella Mendoza calls him a bluffer and a coward at heart, but the fear he inspires in others suggests the bluff may be hiding something real.
Jack Knebworth
Jack Knebworth runs his modest studio with an iron pragmatism — he would sacrifice any player, star or extra, if it strengthened the picture. Yet when Michael Brixan brings him news of Lawley Foss's murder, the old director's composure cracks, and he becomes a wary ally in the hunt. His knowledge of the company's tangled loyalties, especially Stella Mendoza's, makes him a crucial bridge between the film world and the darker business unfolding around it.
Lawley Foss
Lawley Foss hovers at the edges of Jack Knebworth's productions, a script-handler whose quiet presence masks a dangerous discovery. He recognised the handwriting of the so-called Headhunter and saw in it an opportunity for blackmail, a gamble that puts him on a collision course with a killer. His fate becomes the spark that turns a puzzling case into a manhunt, and his death reshapes how Michael Brixan reads everyone around him.
Adele Leamington
Adele Leamington arrives on Jack Knebworth's lot as an unknown, only to find herself the target of Stella Mendoza's jealousy and Sir Gregory Penne's unsettling attention. She is frightened but not timid — when Mendoza tries to buy her off, Adele stands her ground and calls the bluff. Her disappearance in her blue cloak becomes the crisis that forces Michael Brixan to storm Griff Towers and confront what Penne has been hiding.
Crime and Justice
The narrative revolves around the investigation of a serial killer known as the Headhunter, exploring the methods of detection, the nature of criminal psychology, and the challenges of bringing a murderer to justice.
Obsession and Madness
Characters like Mr. Longvale are driven by obsessive hero-worship of his executioner ancestor, leading to homicidal delusions, while Sir Gregory Penne's eccentricities and cruelty suggest a dangerous, obsessive personality.
Class and Social Hierarchy
The book contrasts the struggles of extras like Adele Leamington with the wealth and power of aristocrats like Sir Gregory Penne and the eccentric Mr. Longvale, highlighting class divisions and the exploitation of the less powerful.
Deception and Appearances
Many characters hide their true identities or motives—Michael Brixan works undercover, Mr. Longvale conceals his murderous past, and Stella Mendoza feigns innocence—emphasizing the gap between surface and reality.