A Murray Hill mystery

Typical Pulp Fiction from the 1940's.

Johnny and Dorothy had everything — life, love, happiness. Then she was killed in a freak accident, and Johnny vowed that, one by one, those responsible would feel the loss of those they most loved...

Composed, in part, of reproductions and translations of the work known variously as Instruction of Akhthoy, Enseignements d'Akhtoés, and The praise of learning, and sometimes attributed to Duauf. The most nearly complete version of the text, that of Papyrus Sallier II, in the British Museum, is compared with other known extant versions.

Jane and Dagobert Brown are traveling on a lonely road in the Pyrenees on their way to a music festival when they become the targets of a mysterious sniper. Surviving one hazard, they soon encounter another later that night, when their attractive niece involves them in a complicated romantic wrangle with a rather dubious character. Mystery follows mystery, as Russian spies, stolen bicycles, a child prodigy with a weakness for ice cream, and the maestro himself, a renowned harpsichordist with a disconcerting penchant for liquor, create an awfully complicated vacation for the Browns.

It's 1950, and Dagobert’s latest obsession is Bertran de Born, the bard of Provençal. What better reason to abandon London for the South of France? But before Jane and Dagobert can settle into the rustic Provencal village he's envisioned, they find themselves stuck in Nice, embroiled in the attempted murder of the consulate of Santa Rica, and in the tangled lives of their fellow guests at the Hotel Negresco.

Jane (nee Hamish) and Dagobert Brown planned a long, lazy fortnight in the picturesque old Cornish village of Gwink. At least, that was the idea—but Jane had her doubts about it from the very start. She knew her Dagobert. Sure enough, within a few hours of their arrival at Gwink's quaint old 'Plume of Feathers', the young man with the moustache, the limp and the two Harlequin Great Danes, whom they had noticed on the train down from London, was found dead. The inquest verdict was 'Suicide' but Dagobert was convinced that Patrick Blythe had been murdered.