Assurance Double Sure

eter Court is summoned to Dunbar Manor (the stuff in the house is worth millions) at the request of the lady of the house, Nina Galliard, who submitted to an affair with an unscrupulous Italian society man in a moment of rattle-brained, life-thirsty longing to experience what was missing in her marriage, and now finds herself being blackmailed.


Nina Galliard's husband is 20 years her senior, and is so stuffy, conceited, rigid, humorless, controlling, and hypocritical (to name a few) that he makes life miserable for both his wife and their daughter. If his afore mentioned qualities are not enough, when introduced to the the scheming Baron Antonio Vespa (who has photos of the affair), he is immediately snookered and invites the baron into his home as a revered guest.  A mix made for trouble if there ever was one.


The Baron's eye is not focused on Nina, however, but on her daughter, Jean, a young debutante ripe for marriage, and soon to be heir to her grandmother's millions.

 

Quick as a wink, bodies begin to stack up and Peter ― always in the wrong place at the wrong time ― becomes the chief suspect.


An uncompromising house detective, secluded swimming pools, a mad (but brilliant) organist, a sly and sensuous secretary who has her eye on the master of the manor, and screens that electrocute mosquitoes, all add up to a romantic 1930s murder mystery.