E. X Ferrars

When Mollie Baird receives an anonymous note hinting at murder, she calls in her friend, Professor Andrew Basnett, who discovers a secret so evil it threatens to destroy the entire village.

Retired botany professor Andrew Basnett thought he would spend a quiet Christmas in Australia with his ex-student Tony Gardiner and Tony's wife Jan, but when Jan's sister if found bludgeoned to death with a hugh lump of crystal--the same way Jan's first husband has been killed--and Jan is missing, Basnett finds himself involved in a murder investigation.

"Retired professor Andrew Basnett visits his elderly (very wealthy) cousin and lands in the middle of a violent and devious struggle over inheritance"--

"Virginia and Felix ferret out the links between two apparently unconnected murders, revealing some unpleasant secrets about their neighbors"--

"Ex-odd-couple Virginia and Felix agree to be witnesses at a wedding that turns into an investigation when the groom's father is murdered"--

Plans for peaceful seaside holidays rarely work out well in the world of classic British mysteries. Retired professor Andrew Basnett, for example, envisioning sandcastles and the blessings of a pale English sun on his pale English skin, is startled to meet his nephew, Peter, on the beach. He's more startled (and not entirely thrilled) when Peter gets him invited to dinner with a celebrity novelist. And he's extremely startled when the novelist's sister-in-law...

In Raneswood, England, retired teacher's wife Frances Chance seeks the killer of an actor in the local dramatic society's production of Romeo and Juliet. She discovers there are many secrets in her village--infidelity, blackmail, unrequited love, even sexual perversion--and many reasons to kill. By the author of A Hobby of Murder, who died earlier this year.

Felix Freer and his ex-wife Virginia become involved in trying to locate the daughter of a famous British actress, recently dead, who had disappeared after she had come to stay with her cousins in a small English village.