Publication
Penguin Classic (2012), 192 pages
Collections
Awards
Haycraft Queen Cornerstones (1926)
Julian Symons' 100 Best Crime Stories (1944 — 1926)
Description
Mr Marble is in serious debt, desperate for money to pay his family's bills, until the combination of a wealthy relative, a bottle of Cyanide and a shovel offer him the perfect solution. In fact, his troubles are only just beginning. Slowly the Marble family becomes poisoned by guilt, and caught in an increasingly dangerous trap of secrets, fear and blackmail. Then, in a final twist of the knife, Mrs Marble ensures that retribution comes in the most unexpected of ways ... First published in 1926, C. S. Forester's gritty psychological thriller took crime writing in a new direction, portraying ordinary, desperate people committing monstrous acts, and showing events spiralling terribly, chillingly, out of control.
User reviews
LibraryThing member cranmergirl
This was an eerie story reminiscent of a Hitchcock movie. It was about a creepy little opportunistic man who murders his long lost nephew for money. Mr. Marble, the aforementioned creep, spends the rest of his life brooding over and trying to avoid detection for his utterly evil crime. Eventually,
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justice is served with an ironic twist. I was really gripped by this book until about three quarters of the way through. Because it started to seem too long and drawn out, the twisted ending had less impact than it otherwise might have. Show Less
LibraryThing member Ant.Harrison
I always thought that C S Forester only wrote seafaring novels; I never associated him with three psychological suspense stories written at the start of his career in the 1920s. And what a find Payment Deferred was.
It's the story of pathetic bank clerk William Marble and his slow, but unremitting
For crime fiction aficionados, do yourself a favour and read this book. Highly recommended.
© Koplowitz 2011
It's the story of pathetic bank clerk William Marble and his slow, but unremitting
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descent into madness following the death of his only nephew. This isn't a who done it, but a detailed and haunting account of the effect that murder, money and social class can have on an individual and those around him. Forester has a really distinctive voice and devised a gripping plot that is worthy of comparison to Ruth Rendell or Andrew Taylor. It's hard to believe that this was written almost 90 years ago, and even harder to believe that this (along with his two other suspense titles), has been out-of-print for decades. For crime fiction aficionados, do yourself a favour and read this book. Highly recommended.
© Koplowitz 2011
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LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
The art of C.S. Forester had a high point in the 1926 publication of "Payment Deferred." It is a very good example of the small sub-genre of the thriller, the How-Dunnit! It is a genre trapped into a strait jacket because we know what will happen, so character development is everything. How
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Forester himself regarded this book is shown by the name of his small yacht. It was called "Annie Marble". Read this book, you may never get your hands on this thing being so well done again! Show Less
LibraryThing member nina.jon
A memorable psychological drama.
I ordered and read this on my Kindle, immediately after finishing The Pursued by the same author. If anything I enjoyed it even more.
Poor Mr Marble, he's trapped in a stultifying job and marriage (as he sees it) and drowning in debt. His taste for whiskey doesn't
Forrester’s appeal to me lies in his ability to take us seamlessly from the internal tortures of one character to another. In this way, he rackets up the tension bit by bit. We may not like the characters, but privy as we are to their innermost thoughts, we understand them and empathise.
I won't spoil the ending, but it takes an unexpected form.
A dark domestic tale, a murder mystery and psychological thriller rolled into one.
Nina Jon is the author of the newly released Magpie Murders, a series of short murder mysteries with a Cluedo-esque element.
She is also the author of the Jane Hetherington's Adventures in Detection crime and mystery series, about private detective Jane Hetherington.
I ordered and read this on my Kindle, immediately after finishing The Pursued by the same author. If anything I enjoyed it even more.
Poor Mr Marble, he's trapped in a stultifying job and marriage (as he sees it) and drowning in debt. His taste for whiskey doesn't
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help. Temptation arrives in the form of a wealthy relative, temptation he seizes without a thought for the consequences. Unfortunately for Mr Marble, this novel is a tale of consequences. Rather than the freedom he sought, has Mr Marble’s act of spontaneity condemned him to spend the rest of his days trapped in a vice of lies and deceit, from which no amount of wealth can release him?Forrester’s appeal to me lies in his ability to take us seamlessly from the internal tortures of one character to another. In this way, he rackets up the tension bit by bit. We may not like the characters, but privy as we are to their innermost thoughts, we understand them and empathise.
I won't spoil the ending, but it takes an unexpected form.
A dark domestic tale, a murder mystery and psychological thriller rolled into one.
Nina Jon is the author of the newly released Magpie Murders, a series of short murder mysteries with a Cluedo-esque element.
She is also the author of the Jane Hetherington's Adventures in Detection crime and mystery series, about private detective Jane Hetherington.
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LibraryThing member nadineeg
When William Marble poisons his rich nephew, fresh off the boat from Australia, he thought his troubles were solved - but they had just begun. So states the cover of the book. William Marble is a desperate man, he is in debt and cannot see any way out of it. He is not is debt for any of the
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'normal' reasons but rather he has a wife who lives slightly outside their means and so their debts have increased until he is borrowing from his fellow workers. This is a bad sign - he works in a bank yet he can't think up a solution until he kills his rich young nephew and all seems well and good. Not only does William pay off his debts but he participates in some clever insider trading enabling him to finally live in financial comfort. But what if the body is discovered? William has buried it in the back garden or rather bare patch of land - this is no secret, it is the foci of the tale. William becomes obsessed with ensuring that patch of soil is undisturbed, his habits change, in that he becomes more introverted and more obviously drunk, he reads all he can on crime and the detection of criminal activity. However, this is also a morality tale, as it shows how the one act also affects William's wife and two children sometimes for the better, often for the worse. On the back book cover, under the minimal blurb, is the warning "DO NOT READ THE LAST PAGE FIRST" or indeed don't read it until you get there. A wonderful read and one that can be reread several times as once you have made the journey, like other great mystery writers, you can reread for indepth clues. Show Less
LibraryThing member leslie.98
A psychological crime novel rather than a mystery, which was a little disappointing. However Forester's prose and characters made this book a compelling read. Those readers who like this subgenre might even rate it higher!
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
0141198109 / 9780141198101
Physical description
192 p.; 5.1 inches
Pages
192