A Question of Guilt

A Question of Guilt (1988) is the first novel in English author Frances Fyfield’s six-book series Helen West. Drawing on her career as a criminal lawyer in London, Fyfield blends the mystery, detective, and romance genres to explore the complex psychology of hatred, obsession, and guilt. The novel revolves around a prosecutor and detective who must find a way to prove that a hitman’s story that he was hired to commit a vicious murder is true while avoiding the clutches of the psychopathic woman behind the assassination. Critics praise Fyfield for her idiosyncratic style and the in-depth character studies at the heart of the novel. Nominated for several awards, Publisher’s Weekly calls the novel “wonderfully British, devilishly intricate and, once the reader settles in, compelling indeed.”

In 1980s London, Eileen Cartwright, a rich, miserable, deeply unattractive widow becomes increasingly obsessed with Michael Bernard, her handsome solicitor (in the UK, a solicitor is a lawyer who specializes in business matters). Convinced that all that stands in their way is his wife, Eileen hires the relatively inept Stanislaus Jaskowski, a part-time private investigator, to murder Sylvia Bernard. Jaskowski carries out this horrible crime, stabbing poor Sylvia to death, but is promptly arrested for the killing. He immediately confesses both his own guilt and the fact that Eileen paid him to carry the murder out.

Jaskowski’s case falls to Helen West, a prosecutor who wants to put both the hitman and Eileen behind bars, but quickly realizes that she only has the man’s word that Eileen is in any way involved. Clever, resourceful, and very good at planning, Eileen has hidden her tracks very well. At the same time, Eileen’s wealth and social standing also offer her some degree of protection.



To solve the case, Helen has the help of Geoffrey Bailey, a detective superintendent, and Ryan, Bailey’s underling. As they investigate Eileen, they form some understanding of her psychology. An overweight, ungainly, and lizard-like heavy smoker, Eileen has grown unstable from a lifetime of emotional deprivation. Her father hated her for not being appealing, and her husband also treated her poorly before his early death. Eileen’s unrequited love for her solicitor and her coldblooded decision to execute his wife point to the fact that all of this rejection transformed Eileen into an evil and possibly psychopathic person.

In the meantime, Helen and Geoffrey are attracted to each other, and their close working relationship turns into a personal one. After a quasi-date in which Geoffrey fixes Helen’s bookshelves and they bond over their love of mystery novels, Helen asks Geoffrey to come with her to the wedding of her ex-husband, Hugo. While their romantic life is on the upswing, Ryan finds police work to be incompatible with a stable marriage. He cheats on his wife with a much younger nanny.

Eileen shows up to Jaskowski’s hearing, ostensibly as a show of graciousness in the face of what she claims are unfounded and irrational accusations. She also makes public her desire to help the sons of the hitman as a kind of humanitarian gesture. Jaskowski has three sons—Edward, his younger brother, Peter, and youngest boy, Stanislaus—all of whom are now staying with their uncle. As a gesture of forgiveness for Jaskowski’s ravings, Eileen legally transfers 5000 pounds to Edward’s bank account. In reality, this money accompanies a strange sexual relationship between the two.



Helen and Geoffrey gather enough evidence to put Eileen in jail to await trial. While there, however, she continues her association with Edward, a thuggish, violent brute. Eileen has transferred her hatred to attractive women in general, and to Helen in particular. Eileen slowly convinces Edward to repeat his father’s actions, this time with Helen as the intended victim. Edward has been well primed to receive Eileen’s weird advances because his father has been manipulating the boy’s dark nature all of his life.

Peter, on the other hand, has developed an innocent infatuation with Helen, the first stable and normal female presence in his life. Peter develops the habit of secretly hanging around Helen’s house, enjoying the simplicity of her garden and playing with her cat. When Edward makes his move, attacking Helen with the intent to kill her, Peter’s vaguely stalker-like tendencies pay off. He is there in the nick of time to save Helen from his older brother’s attempted murder. She is, nevertheless, quite seriously injured.

Horrified by Edward’s actions, Peter renounces his loyalty to his brother and decides to help the police instead. After the attack, Peter meets with Geoff to confess everything he knows about the relationship between Edward and Eileen. This testimony is enough to put Eileen away for good.