If a blackmail letter drives a man to suicide, is the sender guilty of murder?
"Yes," says Oliver Swithin, author of bestselling Finsbury the Ferret children's stories and amateur sleuth, who is on holiday in an ancient village.
A midnight streak with his naked girlfriend-Scotland Yard's Effie Strongitham-abruptly ends in the discovery of a corpse. Retired radiobroadcaster Dennis Breedlove has hanged himself from the old gibbet. Evidence suggests blackmail may have driven this celebrity to suicide. Irresistibly intrigued, Oliver believes discovering the dead man's secret will lead to the identity of the blackmailer. But in Britain today, when shame is a ticket to fame, why suicide? What if it wasn't?
When the mystery abruptly turns inside out, black-clad strangers attack Oliver in the night. The Vicar behaves strangely. So do the village's five unmarried Bennet sisters, a mysterious monk, the persistent, self-effacing Underwood Tooth, and Oliver's Uncle Tim, Effie's superior at the Yard and a part-time Shakespearean actor. Plus Oliver's aunt and his mother. Who else might play a role in This Private Plot? Two William Shakespeares?
It's time to put the laugh back into slaughter with the long-awaited third chapter in the career of Oliver Swithin. Yet under the clever wordplay and bawdy jokes lies an inventive and, yes, scholarly plot.
Autorentext
Alan Beechey was born in England and grew up in London. He moved to Manhattan in his twenties and now lives with his three sons and his rescue mutt, Leila, in Rye, New York. This Private Plot is the third title featuring children's book author and amateur sleuth Oliver Swithin and his girlfriend, Scotland Yard detective Effie Strongitharm. They first met in An Embarrassment of Corpses, which The Bookshop Blog included in its list of the "Best 100 Mysteries of All Time," and reappeared in Murdering Ministers. Alan is also the co-author of a non-fiction book on American culture and values.