Anne Morice

>Why has Pelham Hargrave returned to his childhood home after twenty-five successful years in Canada and the United States, and is his beautiful and neurotic young American wife quite what she claims to be? Why has a celebrated Hollywood director chosen to retire to a remote English country house, and why does one young woman covet the house and another abhor it? Above all, what is the secret of old Nannie's power, which allows her to dominate the household like some implacable Buddha in a rocking chair? >These are some of the questions which confront Tessa Crichton, actress wife of Scotland Yard detective Robin Price, when she arrives to spend a quiet weekend with her godmother in Herefordshire. One by one the puzzles are unravelled, thanks to Tessa's spirited and irrepressible curiosity, plus a little help from her husband, but not before two people have died and Tessa herself has narrowly escaped the same fate. >This is a traditional whodunnit, written with Anne Morice's customary verve and humour with plenty of clues cunningly distributed.

> This is a sparkling whodunnit in the best Anne Morice style: the action takes place in and around a stately home of extreme hideousness and ostentation where murder strikes at that normally non-violent and most English institution, the garden fête. >This particular fête is being given by a millionaire tycoon in aid of the local conservation society; it has all the traditional amusements such as bowling for a pig, dart throwing, and fortune-telling, and it also has a minor celebrity to declare it open in the person of Tessa Crichton, who will already be well known to readers of this author's previous books. Tessa's detective inspector husband is not present at the time and she is unable to resist this chance to do a bit of on-the-spot investigation of her own, especially as the police are building up a damaging case against someone she considers to be innocent. >There are plenty of suspects and plenty of motives; nobody shows much inclination to tell the whole truth and Tessa's involvement becomes more personal and more dangerous when another corpse is discovered soon afterwards.

The lady killer No woman could resist John Markham. Yet an evil fate seemed to await all who became involved with the brilliant, handsome, Presidential advisor. Already a young heiress had been drowned... the marriage of a famous actress wrecked... another woman committed to an asylum... a society queen led to betray her husband... How could John Markham save his name from the rising tide of scandal? And what would happen to the beautiful young girl who staked her life on her love and faith in him?

>This is a novel of classical detection in a cheerful vein, though its people are real and its events plausible. >It is narrated by Tessa Price (Tessa Crichton of Death in the Grand Manor has now married Robin Price of the Metropolitan C.I.D.) and the root of the plot is blackmail. Information from her husband, and from some curious acquaintances out of her own past who are evidently connected with the case, leads Tessa herself to become (rather willingly) involved; and being almost as shrewd as she is mischievous she begins to draw various conclusions, not all of them correct. >Many of the encounters in the story take place during Tessa's visits to a London department store, on the top floor of which is a bar to which any customer who spends over twenty-five pounds is invited for a drink. Here lies part of the secret which, in its overt and practised form, is bedevilling Robin at Scotland Yard - who hates blackmailers more than any other criminals. >Tessa gets a bit too knowing, and it is her own life that is finally at stake.

Tessa Crichton, actress and unwitting private detective, joins the cast of Host of Pleasures—a hit West End play opening its American run in Washington D.C. All is not well backstage. Artistic temperament, old hates and new jealousies combine to create an explosive atmosphere among the cast. When one of the actors is found dead, he is initially thought the victim of street violence—then the possibility that he was murdered by someone closer to home starts to seem horribly likely. Tessa, mixing intuition, charm and unassailable curiosity, is convinced this is no ordinary killing. Risking her own safety, and with help from Washington cop Inspector Meek, she slowly discovers the truth amongst a maze of suspects and motives.

> A detective story in the classical form, with a high degree of humour and ingenuity, is hard to come by these days. Here is a superb example. >The young actress Tessa Crichton first appeared in Death in the Grand Manor. In that book she married Detective Inspector Robin Price of the C.I.D., and their next investigation was called Murder in Married Life. >This time Tessa is in dazzling form when Robin suggests that they go visiting in a Sussex village, where there have been a number of thefts of pictures from local houses. Robin has a theory about the art thieves, but when a murder takes place at a party where the Prices are guests a more urgent problem arises. >As ever, Tessa is a mixture of extreme shrewdness, indiscretion, self-composure and recklessness. In effect she chooses privately to run an investigation parallel with her husband's. She does not always tell him the whole truth. Although she is, on this occasion, roughly speaking right, there are bizarre and dangerous consequences. >Strange and brilliant characters, odd birds of paradise, are among the suspects in this cleverly- plotted whodunnit. Here are character, action, humour and a very high likelihood of being deceived (despite fair clues) about the real identity of the murderer.

Irreverent, thought-provoking and hilarious, Leary's parting shot pioneers new ways to die and new ways for the living to think about death. Urging us to take control of our deaths (and even to determine when and how we will die). Leary relates his own plan for "directed dying," a death we plan and orchestrate to reflect our own lives and values.

The setting is a British colony, somewhere tropical, and the daily lives of dutifully empire-building distaff members as seen through the eyes of a young English visitor. The author is sharp, funny, and not at all kind.

>>With no sound at all, she pitched forward head first into the punch bowl, scattering canapés and glasses in all directions. >By all accounts, Mike Parsons is a paragon: considerate, loyal and devoted to his awkward wife – rumoured to be an alcoholic. But now he has done a vanishing act. Was he killed – and who would murder such a kind individual anyway? >Rising young actress Tessa Crichton is unwittingly set a real puzzle in investigating the case of a man she knew and liked – but who turns out to be a more mysterious character than previously thought. Needing all her detective skill to find out what has really happened to the saintly husband, Tessa uncovers evidence that increasingly puts herself in danger.