Black Beadle - Robert Macdonald Author:E. C. R. Lorac Blackmail and its consequences play a big part in E.C.R. Lorac's 1939 masterpiece of understatement and style. Many of Edith Caroline Rivett's (who wrote as "E.C.R. Lorac") mystery novels are very hard to find and this is one of them. It's one of Inspector Macdonald's best cases.