Classic Mysteries

From the Vault: "The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side"

This week on the Classic Mysteries podcast, we have a return engagement for one of Agatha Christie's finest investigators, Miss Jane Marple, of the little village of St. Mary Mead. I must say that I often prefer the Miss Marple books to the Hercule Poirot stories. But why set them up as rivals? Instead, let me share with you a review I wrote of one of my favorite Miss Marple books: The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side (1962). This audio review was done for the Classic Mysteries podcast several years ago. Here's a transcript - as usual, slightly edited:

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Miss Marple looked shocked.

“I don’t know why you should assume that I think of murder all the time.”

“Nonsense, Jane. Why don’t you come out boldly and call yourself a criminologist and have done with it?”

“Because I am nothing of the sort,” said Miss Marple with spirit. “It is simply that I have a certain knowledge of human nature – that is only natural after having lived in a small village all my life.”

Those are the words of Miss Jane Marple, probably Agatha Christie’s second-best-known detective. Although she’s not really a detective – or a criminologist, as she says. It’s just that she has had a great deal of experience in sizing people up in the small village of St. Mary Mead, where she lives. And that experience frequently has allowed her to solve murders – and other serious crimes – where the police have been heading in the wrong direction. We have another example of that ability in action today in The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, by Agatha Christie.

The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side was the eighth of the twelve novels Agatha Christie wrote about Miss Marple. By the time of this book Miss Marple is definitely feeling her age. She still lives in her small house in the village of St. Mary Mead, putting up with a companion-nurse who insists on treating her like a rather feeble – and even feeble-minded – old woman. Being Miss Marple, she won’t sit still for that. So, escaping her house one day, and walking through the new housing development which is so changing the nature of her beloved village, she takes a fall. She is rescued by one of the residents, a kindly (if rather officious and self-preoccupied) woman named Heather Badcock.

At the same time, Gossington Hall – a house well known to Miss Marple from earlier adventures – has been sold to a movie star, Marina Gregg, and her husband. They invite several important townspeople to their house for a party to benefit a local charity – and Heather Badcock, who is active in that charity, is one of the guests. As Mrs. Badcock introduces herself to Marina Gregg, who is standing at the top of the stairway to greet her guests, another guest – one of Miss Marple’s friends – notices a most unusual thing: Marine Gregg suddenly stares, apparently over Mrs. Badcock’s shoulder, at something or someone she sees on the stairway. As it will later be described to Miss Marple, it reminded observers of Tennyson’s poem about the Lady of Shalott – hence this quote:

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The Mirror crack’d from side to side;

‘The curse has come upon me,’ cried

The Lady of Shalott.

And while it is not at all clear what produced this stricken, even cursed look upon Marina Gregg’s face…within minutes, there is a murder. And, fairly soon after that, Scotland Yard detective Dermot Craddock, who takes over the investigation, must decide whether perhaps the wrong victim has been murdered.

The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side was published in 1962, when Agatha Christie was 71 years old – and the result is one of the best of her later novels to feature Miss Marple. It’s really a work of pure armchair detection, for Miss Marple deduces the correct solution to the mystery based solely on what others tell her and, of course, her skill at understanding human nature, as developed in a very small village. She never visits the scene of the crime herself until the very end of the book, when she goes to Gossington Hall to explain the truth about what had happened.

For those who believe that Christie created great plots, but never wrote about great characters, this book may make you rethink that idea. Many of the characters – Marina Gregg, her husband, Heather Badcock, and others – are strong enough to make readers care about what happens to them. And Miss Marple – more vulnerable to her own advancing age than she likes or will admit – is a very sympathetic character, at least as far as I’m concerned. The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side is a pretty dark book for Agatha Christie – very little in the way of a happy ending. But, as is usually the case with Christie, it is carefully plotted, with clues placed throughout the book that should lead the careful reader to figure out the real solution before Miss Marple reveals it. That is, it should lead the reader there – but probably won’t. I do think you’ll like it.

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You are welcome to listen to the original audio review by clicking here.

Next: Man of Two Tribes, by Arthur W. Upfield.

"The Laughing Dog"

It was a most unusual drawing. It was a portrait, apparently of a dog, drawn by a street artist in Algiers. It was supposed to be a brief portrait of the person who was sitting for the artist - in this case, a caricature of Doctor Hugh Challoner, who had encountered the artist, Aubrey Highton, while on vacation in Algiers. What made the portrait so unusual was that the image of the dog appeared to be laughing. At the artist? At Dr. Challoner? It's hard to be sure.

And Dr. Challoner – who appeared to be both angry and more than a little upset by the strange portrait – nevertheless agrees to help Highton find a job as a commercial artist back home in England.  It isn’t long before Dr. Challoner is home in the town of Sturton Lacy, and Highton is living in a hotel very close to the doctor’s office.

And the next time we shall hear about Dr. Challoner, he is dead, his strangled body found in his own office in Sturton Lacy. When the body is found, police quickly find what appears to be a copy of that unusual caricature.

Is there a connection here? You'll find out in The Laughing Dog, a 1948 mystery by Francis Vivian. It's the subject of my audio review this week on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the complete review (at no cost) by clicking here.

“Francis Vivian” was the pen name used by a British journalist named Arthur Ernest Ashley. As Vivian he wrote some 18 mysteries, about half of which featured Detective Inspector Gordon Knollis as the primary investigator of the mystery. In The Laughing Dog, Inspector Knollis is sent by Scotland Yard to look into the peculiar murder of Doctor Challoner. There are several points of interest: first, there would seem to be only a small number of people who could have committed the murder – yet among those people, it would appear that none could have had anything like an adequate motive for murder. It is in the course of Knollis's investigation that they discover the caricature of the laughing dog, found in a diary kept by Doctor Challoner. But if this is a clue…a clue against whom? The Laughing Dog provides us with a well-told tale, with some nice twists along the way to a solution. I do think that you’ll enjoy it.

From the Vault: "Mystery in White"

It's been a snowy winter, now that we're about two months into the season in the Northeast. My wife, not really much of a fan of heavy snowfalls, was disheartened when she stepped outside the garage and found herself hip-deep in snow. One of the few responses I could make to Winter became clear, however, when I stepped into the Classic Mysteries vault for a copy of T. Jefferson Farjeon's fine book called Mystery in White. If you haven't read it, there's no time like the present. It was the subject of one of my audio reviews for the Classic Mysteries podcast several years back. Here, for your (I hope) enjoyment, is a transcript of that review  - as usual, somewhat edited:

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Within reason, a train ride through a countryside while in the midst of a snowstorm can be very beautiful indeed.

Within reason.

The problems, though, do multiply very quickly when that snowfall gets out of control. That’s what happened on a winter’s night just before Christmas to the passengers on an English train, the 11:37 from Euston. By that time, the snow had been falling for several days. So when the snow became impassable, as it did in mid-journey, the train simply came to a complete halt, unable to go either backwards or forwards. There was no indication that the train would be able to move again anytime in the immediate future. As a result, several passengers from one of the train’s third class compartments decided to risk leaving the train and try to find their way at the very least to a station located just five or six miles down the track. Unfortunately, the weather continued to get worse…the snowfall becoming a steady blizzard, making it impossible to see anything at all, let alone a road or a railroad track. It was getting pretty desperate before they discovered a house out there, in the middle of nowhere. So they knocked at the door, and…

Well, what happened next really is at the heart of this mystery. The story may be found in a book called Mystery in White, by T. Jefferson Farjeon. He is another of those Golden Age English mystery writers who is virtually unknown to today’s readers – pretty amazing when you realize that between 1924 and 1955, he cranked out more than eighty novels, many of them detective stories. Mystery in White was written in the middle of Farjeon’s career, in 1937. It’s a Christmas mystery – it takes place just before and during the Christmas holiday. It is set in a heavy blizzard – the kind of scene so popular with many Golden Age mystery writers, presenting us with a group of people isolated by a snowstorm, unable to communicate with the outside world…and something happens to them.

In this case, what happens, as the central characters struggle through the snow, looking for shelter, is that they come upon a house. They knock – no answer. But one of them tries the door, and it opens. They walk inside to find nobody home – yet fires are burning in the fireplace, the water for tea is ready to boil, the bedrooms are neatly prepared for guests. Why would anybody have left the house in that blizzard? There are no answers…not yet anyway. The refugees from the train include a brother and sister, another young man who is a clerk, an elderly bore, a showgirl, and an elderly psychic researcher who will, eventually, be our detective. This party of intruders, needing warmth and food and shelter, settle in, waiting for the residents of the house to return home…and the wait gets longer and longer.

And other stranded travelers do find the house, including a most unpleasant character who calls himself “Mr. Smith.” There is word of a murder on board the train which they had left. And the mystery grows in and around that house…with ever-more disquieting clues about the secret behind the disappearance of whoever lived there.

And, yes, there will be murder done again before the solution is presented.

Mystery in White really isn’t much of a fair-play puzzle – it’s kind of a light thriller. Gradually, the reader learns the secret of the house and of the people who live there, but it’s not revealed through hidden clues. Most of the secret is revealed through papers found in the house. But through it all, the blizzard…for that snowfall does indeed become a blizzard…keeps some pretty dark secrets. The writing is kept light, and the humor helps to keep the reader both entertained and informed. There’s a touch of romance as well, and the plot flirts with the supernatural without letting it overpower the book. Mystery writer Martin Edwards has contributed a fine introduction to the book providing additional context and some fascinating insight into the life and work of the author, T. Jefferson Farjeon. Mystery in White is another classic reprint available in paper, on audio and as an e-book. It’s an easy, quick and entertaining read.

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If you'd like to listen to the original audio review, please click here.

Next: The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side, by Agatha Christie.

"Murder in Vienna"

I suspect that even Robert Macdonald, Senior Superintendent, C. I. D., Scotland Yard, would tell you that his plans for a quiet holiday in Vienna, Austria, did not work out exactly as planned. Instead of a pleasant and relaxing vacation among old friends in a city he had come to know and love when he had visited frequently before World War II, Macdonald found himself helping the local Viennese police deal with a couple of nasty murders. The story will be found in Murder in Vienna, written by E.C.R. Lorac in 1955. It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the original podcast by clicking here.

E.C.R. Lorac was one of several pen names used by Edith Caroline Rivett in writing dozens of mystery novels. One of the many things I admire about E.C.R. Lorac’s books is her ability to develop realistic characters, along with her evident fondness for the places she visits in her books. That’s certainly true of Murder in Vienna; her fondness for Vienna – at least the Vienna that still existed a decade after the terrible events of the Second World War – shines through her writing.

Intrigue really wasn’t on Macdonald’s mind at all when he flew into Vienna, idly observing the faces of some of his fellow-passengers – all of them unknown to him. He was going on vacation, to see friends, and – above all things – to enjoy Vienna.

And yet, sometimes – in places where intrigues are perhaps more common, especially in mystery fiction – those places may be more interested in you than you are in them. And that may explain why Viennese police turned to Macdonald for help, when some of the other people who had been on Macdonald's plane from London to Zurich and on to Vienna, began having suspicious accidents…with at least one of the attacks culminating in murder.

It's a story about clever detective work, married to a story which occasionally veers over into thriller territory. And it certainly provides a quick and enjoyable read. I think you'll enjoy it.

From the Vault: "Look to the Lady"

One of the reasons why I still very much enjoy the books of Margery Allingham is that it is virtually impossible to open one of her books without being surprised, without discovering, for example, that the book you thought would be a fine cerebral detective story was, instead, a charming but engaging thriller. Allingham created her primary character, Albert Campion, as a more-or-less "bright young person," but that's not the way he developed over the years. Sometimes, he'd be right in the thick of the action, while at other times, he'd be outside the central characters' sphere of influence. Looking through the Allingham volumes sitting comfortably within the Classic Mysteries vault, I was struck again by the characters and the situations revealed in Look to the Lady, where you'll find murders (real and avoided), a whiff of something supernatural, an ancient and priceless relic, an equally ancient curse, determined villains, noble defenders, and - to be sure - hints of active royalty lurking discreetly in the background. It seemed like a logical choice this week to bring Look to the Lady back to the podcast and blog for the enjoyment of all the above. I did an audio review for the Classic Mysteries podcast several years ago. Here is a transcript of that review - as always, slightly edited. I hope you enjoy it.

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For a millennium or more, the Gyrth family had been the guardians of an ancient and priceless relic on behalf of the British crown – the Gyrth Chalice. Safe in what appeared to be an unassailable fortress, and – according to legend – guarded by some supernatural power, the chalice had been safely preserved since long before the Norman Conquest. But modern criminals, with modern views about such things, were determined to steal the chalice on behalf of a very wealthy and unscrupulous collector. And it was up to the Gyrth family to make certain that didn’t happen. Fortunately, they had an ally – a gentleman named Albert Campion. The story is told in Look to the Lady.

Margery Allingham was one of the gifted writers who dominated English mystery fiction during the Golden Age between the two world wars. Her protagonist – he was not always the detective – her protagonist was Albert Campion, a young man, apparently the second son of a noble British family, who became involved, over the years, in a number of surprising and intricate cases. Not all of Allingham’s books are detective stories; some are out-and-out thrillers, and that certainly was the case with her third book about Campion called Look to the Lady, originally published in 1931.

The plot of this book is complicated, to say the least. Basically, as I said before, it has at its heart the pursuit by unscrupulous and very wealthy criminals of a British national treasure, the Gyrth Chalice, which has been under the protection of the Gyrth family as trustees for the British royals for a thousand years or so. There also seems to be some terrible family secret concerning the chalice – and the locals do talk of a supernatural guardian that helps to keep it safe. Enter Albert Campion, the rather vague young man who seems to know a great deal about the effort to steal the chalice – and who will be the last, best hope of averting the national disaster which would accompany the theft of the priceless relic.

In the course of this duel to the death between the defenders and the thieves, we will be treated to – in no particular order – murder, kidnappings, art forgery, a cross-country car chase, a dramatic ride to the rescue on a wild and dangerous horse, witchcraft, gypsies, a gang of thugs, some horror that hides in the woods on the family estate, secret rooms and panels, an elaborate secret family ritual and an ultimate resolution that may or may not have supernatural overtones. And I’m quite sure I’ve missed several elements in that list.

In other words, yes it is a thriller. It’s not a detective story – we learn the identity of the primary villain some two-thirds of the way through the book – but the fun here is not in the search for whodunit but rather it is in watching the duel between that villain and the forces of good, represented by Campion and members of the Gyrth family.

There are some marvelous characters here – not least among whom is Mr. Campion’s servant, with the wonderful name of Magersfontein Lugg, who probably should not be allowed out by himself in polite society. As Campion observes at one point,

“That’s the trouble with Lugg. He’s always got the courage of his previous convictions. He used to be quite one of the most promising burglars, you know.”

Allingham is quite good at drawing her characters for the reader and bringing them to life. Her writing has both wit and grace. At one point, describing the ramshackle cottage where a couple of her village locals live, she writes,

“Peck’s cottage was one of those picturesque, insanitary thatched lath-and-plaster dwellings which stir admiration and envy in the hearts of all those who do not have to live in them.”

And of the village itself where the story is set, she writes:

“It was a fairy-tale village peopled by yokels who, if they did not wear the traditional white smocks so beloved of film producers, at least climbed the rough steps to the church on a Sunday morning in top hats of unquestionable antiquity.”

I think this will give you some taste for the kind of quietly humorous writing you will find in Look to the Lady – it is thoroughly enjoyable, with a great many twists and some fascinating characters.

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You are welcome to listen to the complete original audio review by clicking here.

Next: Mystery in White, by T. Jefferson Farjeon.

"The Orange Axe"

A grim solution to a grim problem: how to deal with a loathsome blackmailer who may also be a serial killer? For half-a-dozen young English gentlemen, the answer appears to be a well-plotted murder, one where it will be impossible to tell who struck the fatal blow. Only things may not always go quite as smoothly as planned.

Consider the situation at the beginning of Brian Flynn’s excellent 1931 mystery, The Orange Axe. A young woman is being threatened and tormented by a blackmailer. Six young men, all friends and/or relatives of the victim, are determined that the blackmailing villain, André de Ravenac will be put to death as the result of a complex and – they feel quite sure – foolproof plan to end de Ravenac’s blackmailing exploits. The young men will draw lots to decide which one of them will actually commit murder, while the others play lesser roles in a carefully developed conspiracy to cover up the crime and mask the real criminal. Nobody in the group will ever know who carried out the murder.

And so the plan is carried out. De Ravenac is murdered – the victim of a knife thrust through the heart. And that’s when bits and pieces of the plan start going wrong. It happens in The Orange Axe, by Brian Flynn. It's the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to that complete review online by clicking here.

With a state visit under way in London from the President of a small political republic, Sir Austin Kemble, the director of Scotland Yard, agrees to invite his friend and semi-official investigator, Anthony Bathurst to take over the investigation. (Bathurst is the principal detective in nearly all of the mysteries written by Brian Flynn.) He - and readers - will soon discover that there's a great deal more going on here than meets the eye.

And we’re off on a race, first to follow the clues left by the murderer…then, perhaps, to develop a logical response. It will all end in a highly dramatic confrontation between Anthony Bathurst and the killer, as Bathurst tries to find proof of the guilt of a suspect whose identity, I think, when finally revealed, is liable to surprise the reader. The Orange Axe, by Brian Flynn, is a remarkably clever mystery that I think you would enjoy. This new edition from Dean Street Press also features an introduction by mystery historian Steve Barge to both the author and this book.

 

From the Vault: "The Blind Barber"

The mystery which I want to share with you today on our "From the Vault" feature reminds me of a very old but still appropriate nursery rhyme:

There was a little girl and she had a little curl

right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good, she was very very good,

And when she was bad she was horrid - but remarkably interesting, all the same.

Which is my way of inviting you to read, or re-read, one of my favorite impossible crime detective stories by the great John Dickson Carr. The key words there are "impossible" and "detective." "Impossible," by the nature of the crime (murder on a luxury ocean liner - but the victim disappears and nobody is missing). "detective," because Carr's detective, Dr. Gideon Fell, sits in his living room in London, is told everything (and only things shared with the reader) about the crime - and solves the mystery without even leaving his armchair.

Yes, it's also "horrid" - but only if you believe that a great mystery cannot also be a hilariously funny farce. Murder is a terrible crime, but I suspect very few crimes of this nature happen in real life. And I'll stand by my diagnosis of "remarkably interesting." I'll explain more in this (lightly edited) transcript below of my Classic Mysteries audio review of Carr's 1934 classic, The Blind Barber. You have been warned...

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It was most certainly a memorable voyage. The commander of that noble passenger liner, the S. S. Queen Victoria, is highly unlikely to forget that particular Atlantic crossing. In fairness, Captain Sir Hector Whistler probably would prefer to forget it completely. For the high jinks aboard his great luxury liner were unlike any before or since. There was a fair amount of mayhem involved, and a lot of drinking…and also the theft of a fabulous jewel. And there was a bloody murder followed by an impossible disappearance. And the solution would come from a detective who wasn’t even on board the Queen Victoria (though he bitterly regretted having missed all the fun) – Dr. Gideon Fell. It all happens in The Blind Barber, by John Dickson Carr.

John Dickson Carr was – and remains, I think – the undisputed 20th century master of the impossible crime and locked room mystery genre – the crime that couldn’t have happened, yet did. In The Blind Barber, we have what I think is one of his most ingenious plots.

But...

The Blind Barber – first published in 1934, 87 years ago – is showing its age, frankly. It shows it mostly in a matter of attitude, but it’s hard to bring a 2021 point-of-view to that kind of 87-year-old humor.

So before we go any farther, let me list some of the things I really really like about The Blind Barber and also some of the things I don’t like as much.

I like the plot – a plot that is so complex that it’s hard to summarize here without totally confusing you – or confusing me, for that matter. Among its elements, it has to do with some stolen movie film that could prove very embarrassing to people in very high places, a stolen emerald elephant, and a bloody shipboard murder with a victim who vanishes.

I like the fact that it is a pure armchair detective story. Carr’s detective, Dr. Gideon Fell, quite literally sits in his armchair in his London rooms and is told the story of what happened on board the ship by one of the participants – and Dr. Fell solves the mystery without ever setting foot out of his rooms.

I like the fact that it is a comedy. In fact, it is a farce. As critic Anthony Boucher observed in his introduction to the 1962 Collier paperback edition sitting on my bookshelf, "this book is a farce about murder."

I like the four main characters involved in the strange events on board the S. S. Victoria – the people who are responsible for so much of the slapstick that surrounds this mystery and who somehow manage repeatedly to assault the dignified captain of the ship with everything from fists to bug spray.

What I do NOT like is some of the attitude.

Given the rather brutal nature of the murder in the book – and of the murderer, for that matter – some of the laughter rings kind of hollow to me.

I do NOT like the fact that so much of the humor is based on the idea that drinking to excess is inherently funny.

I do NOT like the fact that some of the humor is based on ethnic stereotyping. Note that this is ethnic, not racial, but – in 2021 – it feels more than a little awkward.

And now that I’ve listed all that for you, let me say only that I still think the plot of the book is brilliant and a lot of the humor really is funny, in a “three stooges” kind of way.

Oh – you want to know what happens? Well, as I said, the plot involves all sorts of complications. To repeat, paraphrasing the blurb of that 1962 Collier edition, there’s a reel of compromising film, an emerald elephant, and a lethal razor for props, murder as the evil deed, and unmitigated mayhem as the comedy relief. And there’s also the question of how to arrange for a disappearance at sea – when nobody is missing from the ship. When the ship reaches London, one of our central characters goes to visit Dr. Fell and lays the case out before him – and Dr. Fell is able to explain what really happened. And, in that Collier edition – I don’t know if it’s available in the newer e-book version – when Dr. Fell offers his explanation at the end of the book, the reader is given footnotes which contain the number of the page on which that clue had been given to you. Enjoy a good game of matching wits with the author and his detective? The Blind Barber is a great choice for you.

To quote Anthony Boucher again, he wrote in his introduction:

“Unlike almost all other comedies of terrors, The Blind Barber is a detective story, in the strictest sense. But never was a reader more bedeviled with distractions from detection. Who observes clues while he’s wiping his laughter-streaming eyes? I hope you enjoy the challenge…and the fun.

And I think that pretty well sums up The Blind Barber, by John Dickson Carr. And I really do hope I haven’t dissuaded you from giving the book a try. It’s available now in an e-book edition from Open Road Media. If you can overlook its flaws – mostly, as I say, the result of 1930s attitudes being viewed through 21^st century eyes – I really do think you’ll enjoy the mystery – and you’ll be astounded by the solution.

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You can listen to the complete audio review by clicking here.

Next: Look to the Lady, by Margery Allingham.

"Death of a Doxy"

Back before the days of what is now called (with some justification) "the sexual revolution," there were names - frequently hurtful names - used to "define" women like Isabel Kerr. There’s “showgirl” for example – but no, Isabel’s sister objects violently to the use of that word; Isabel, she says, was an “actress.” Archie Goodwin, Nero Wolfe’s right-hand man, looks a little closer:

“Okay. An actress leaves the theater, takes a three-hundred-dollar apartment, has no job, eats well, dresses well, has a car, uses thirty-dollar perfumes. Who wouldn’t know?"

But Isabel Kerr was dead - murdered. And – with the police focused on a suspect who is both a friend and sometime colleague of both Archie Goodwin and his boss, Nero Wolfe, and as there seemed to be no other apparent candidates for the role of first murderer, it was clear that Wolfe and Archie were going to have to get involved in the search for the real killer. It's the story told in Death of a Doxy (1966), by Rex Stout. It's the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you're welcome to listen to the complete review by clicking here.

Death of a Doxy begins with Archie Goodwin discovering the body of Isabel Kerr in her apartment. Archie has gone there to try to retrieve some items which have enormous blackmail potential. Instead, he finds Isabel Kerr, done in by a handy blunt instrument. Isabel Kerr, in fact, had two lovers unknown to her family and even to most of her friends. One was really top-secret: a very rich man of power and influence who could easily afford to keep Isabel Kerr in her $300 dollar a month apartment. Her other lover on the side, so to speak, was a private detective who worked often for Nero Wolfe. And as the police found that detective’s fingerprints all over everything in Isabel Kerr’s apartment, and knew nothing about that lover on the side, they not too surprisingly arrested him as a material witness in the case, and seemed quite content to wait for conclusive evidence against him to turn up. But Wolfe and Archie knew some of Isabel Kerr’s secrets – enough to convince them of their colleague’s innocence – and they used their knowledge to bait a trap for a killer and blackmailer.

It's a fast-moving story, with some wonderful and memorable characters, and I think you're sure to enjoy it. It appears to be most readily available (and affordable) as an e-book.