When Virginia Freer spends a weekend with her friends the Boscotts the last person she expects to meet is the lying, light-fingered charmer who was her husband. And when Virginia, Felix and the Boscotts reach the scene. Yet within a few hours of a party given to celebrate the engagement of a local poet and a best-selling novelist, the novelist's sister arrives distraught on the Boscotts' doorstep to announce that she has found her shot dead in their bungalow next door. She and Felix have been separated for several years. On the other hand, while the fuss they generate may not have been wholly necessary, it is nonetheless a fascinating and wholly absorbing sort of fuss.When Virginia Freer spends a weekend with her friends the Boscotts the last person she expects to meet is the lying, light-fingered charmer who was her husband. I think it’s because it’s clear that the police this time are perfectly capable of solving the murders by themselves, without the odd couple assistance of Mr. Or are there two murderers? A bigamous marriage some years in the past seems to be the crux of the matter, as well as some other more recent romantic entanglements, and a bit of injudicious blackmail. Nor is his idea of finding a killer a very useful one for the police.ĭead is a writer of historical novels, on the night of her engagement party to poet Basil Deering, who is the murderer’s next target. He slips in and out of her life with such casualness that it is not a foregone conclusion that he will. There is a bare chance – but don’t count on it – that Virginia Freer’s errant ex-husband Felix, who has appeared at least one time before, may return again and “solve” another case. Where would Christie have been without Poirot or Miss Marple? Ingenious mystery plots may be totally fine in the abstract, but unfortunately they just don’t grab the reader’s attention in the bookstore. (And of Toby Dyke, who has not been heard from since 1942, I know nothing at all.) One big reason I can see for that is that since her first five books, until very recently has she not used a series character of any kind.
Ferrars has been writing mysteries for over forty years, she’s nowhere as well-known as she should be. Published earlier in the UK by Collins, hardcover, 1980.Īlthough E. Doubleday/Crime Club, US, hardcover, 1980.
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