Assassins at Ospreys
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- $0.99
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- $0.99
Publisher Description
When one of mystery writer Antonia Darcy's admiring readers, Bee Ardleigh, becomes over friendly, Antonia finds it just a bit of a bore. But when she and husband Major Hugh Payne are persuaded to visit Bee at Millbrook House, they begin to suspect it's something more sinister. Is the lovely Bee, newly wed, really an invalid? Where does her female live-in companion go on her frequent outings? Why would the mortally ill master of nearby Ospreys estate decide to change his will and leave his vast fortune to Beatrice? Hugh and Antonia become embroiled in a gruesome death in their perilous pursuit of the truth.
Praise for R.T. Raichev
'Fascinating and surreal.' Lady Antonia Fraser
'All so ingenious.' Emma Tennant
'Clever and complex.' Francis Wyndham
'Splendidly old-fashioned sleuthery ... skilfully probes the surface smoothness of country houses ...couldn't put it down.' Hugh Massingberd
'This auspicious first in a new mystery series from Raichev ... Agatha Christie fans will find much to like in this traditional whodunit.' Publishers Weekly
'The kind of old-school English mysteries that fans of Christie and Sayers love ... but this will be pleasing to more than traditionalists, because it adds a P. D. Jamesian subtlety to the comfortable Christie formula. Antonia Darcy is a terrific sleuth, and Raichev is a very clever writer, indeed.' Booklist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of Raichev's stylish third novel to feature mystery writer Antonia Darcy and her husband, Maj. Hugh Payne (after 2007's The Death of Corrine), the couple attend a literary festival in Hay-on-Wye. There they reluctantly befriend two unusual women a femme fatale in a wheelchair, Beatrice "Bee" Ardleigh, and Bee's austere companion, Ingrid Delmar whom Hugh dubs "Goldilocks and Cerberus." A few months later, Antonia and Hugh accept Bee's invitation to come see her in Oxfordshire, where Bee has just made a controversial marriage and Ingrid has been impersonating Bee on visits to a dying neighbor who plans to leave his home, Ospreys ("The secret house of death they used to call it"), to the National Trust. The twisty plot thickens with the murder of a shady, Chartreuse-drinking priest at Ospreys. Deft use of literary allusion and well-drawn if unsubtle characterization are among the strengths of this traditional whodunit.
