Endeavour Books
Long Man's Shadow by Anne Wilkinson
murder mystery
Could the widowed Mrs Stonier be the the new Miss Marple?
Having taken early retirement from her job in publishing, she now works in The Home of Taste, a retro-vintage shop. This is useful as she has `downsized' to a flat in Stoke Newington and needs to organise her `tat'.
While sorting through her boxes, she comes across one containing photos, labelled the Brittan albums, which she had bought with her late husband at a car boot sale in Essex 10 years earlier. The photos were taken in the 1930s.
On a foray to Sussex to stay with her sister, a body is discovered. It is in a well at Willmans House, Fairlingly, where renovation work is being carried out. Apparently the female body has been there some time.
Our amateur detective realises that this is where the photographs in the albums were taken.
Using her new-found skills from her evening classes on family history, she begins to research the families in the photos, the Brittans and, their close neighbours, the Jeavingtons.
Gradually their profiles begin to emerge. However, in Sussex, despite the help of her sister and the local vicar in unravelling the mystery, there is unexpected local opposition to her enquiries.
Why so many years after a murder had been committed should there be so much local interest?
As Mrs Stonier digs deeper, the questions multiply...
A Fatal Rhythm by Ruth Wade
It's 1925. Thirty-year-old Cora Grenville, daughter of The Rt Honourable Henry Fitzsimons MP, is emerging out of mourning for her husband.
Although recognised as a society beauty and philanthropist, neither her marriage nor her life to date has fulfilled her.
Longing to find something to ignite her passions once more, she decides to spend the summer in Granada; writing a book about the Gypsies of Andalusia might be just the tonic she needs.
Unable to persuade her friend Hermione to travel with her, Cora flouts convention by taking a working class girl, Violet Brown, as her maid and companion.
Long, lazy days in the sunshine, the charming house on the Alhambra Hill, and the attentions of an enigmatic and handsome Spaniard all lead her to believe she has successfully recreated the world of the Romantic Traveller.
But dark forces are at work to rob her of this illusion: the Gypsies connive to steal her fortune; anarchists want her as a hostage for their cause; and the man she thought was her protector, has sinister designs of his own.
Ruth Wade also writes as BK Duncan.
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