A Meeting With Murder

Praise for Caron Allan's Dottie Manderson mysteries:

 

'Five stars! Delightfully entertaining, rich characters, suspenseful, charming all in one; anxiously awaiting the next one!"

 

"a fascinating tale set in England in the 1930s. This 'cosy crime' novel... is a good read; something to entertain and satisfy... The settings and period detail are excellent…The denouement is swift, tense and satisfying…"

 

"Dottie Manderson is a gorgeous character…A great read and I'm looking forward to catching up with more of Dottie."

 

Dee Gascoigne's life is a mess. Her marriage is over, she's lost her job, and now she's recovering from a nasty bout of bronchitis. Her family send her off to stay with an old friend in a small village by the sea. A change of scene and a spot of relaxation should be just what Dee needs as she ponders her future.

 

But even in a tiny place like Porthlea, malice and danger lurk. Dee quickly discovers there's nothing like a murder to take her mind off her problems. The local police are not interested, but nothing can stop Dee asking questions. After all, she comes from a long line of nosy women!

 

The Miss Gascoigne mysteries are a series of traditional mysteries set in Britain in the 'Swinging 60s' and featuring Diana 'Dee' Gascoigne as an amateur detective who stumbles over dead bodies almost as often as your average dog-walker. Between jobs and with a penchant for solving a mystery, she is aided and abetted by her brother Rob, studying to be a barrister, who helps her to pit her wits against the 'official' team of investigators, which sometimes includes her 'kind-of cousin', Inspector Bill Hardy, and his sidekick, Sergeant Nahum 'Nat' Porter.

 

Extract from A Meeting With Murder: Miss Gascoigne mysteries book 1

 

She felt a deep reluctance to enter the room. Already she knew this was no ordinary moment. There was a musty stale smell, and something else besides. The metallic scent of blood on the air. She was still puzzling over the idea of there being blood as she went into the room. After all, no one had said anything about…

She stopped dead. Staring at the scene, her brain scrambled to make sense of the picture in front of her. Someone—Sheila, yet not Sheila anymore—was seated in an armchair beside a circular dining-table. On the table was a wine bottle and a single glass with a small amount of wine left in it. Beside the wine bottle, the radio was still playing softly, the music was an old danceband tune that seemed hauntingly out of place in the circumstances. The goosebumps stood out down Dee's arms.

Unwillingly, yet knowing it could not be avoided, Dee forced herself to look at Sheila Fenniston. She had fallen slightly to the side, leaning against the edge of the table, and her head lolled back, her eyes half-open, her gaze fixed upon something Dee couldn't see. Sheila was wearing a long nightdress of a surprisingly demure variety. She held her hands in her lap, and along the forearms and on the lap of her nightdress was the brown sticky mess of blood. It had run down on either side of her and formed two puddles on the thin aged carpet. And there by her right foot, glistening softly in the half-light was a razor, dirty with blood.

Dee put her fingers to Sheila's neck, knowing it was pointless. The skin was cold. There was no pulse. Dee backed out of the room, groping her way down the stairs. She closed the front door behind her and said, her voice faint, 'No one can go in. Sheila's dead. We must get the police immediately.'