The Duchess Didn't Do It

Eleanor, Marchioness of Merritt, has spent four quiet seasons quietly solving the murders that polite society would prefer left unsolved. The fifth is rather more inconvenient. Her closest friend — Cressida, the thrice-divorced Duchess of Ashcombe, a woman of eccentric habits and notoriously sharp opinions — has been arrested for the poisoning of Cornelius Vane, a gentleman she had the poor judgement to threaten in front of twelve witnesses at his own dinner table. To the public, Cressida is a monster. To Eleanor, she is the only friend who understands the absurdity of high society. Proving her innocence, however, is a different beast than proving it in a drawing room.

Inspector Josiah Hale of Scotland Yard receives the case with the weary patience of a man who has known Eleanor rather too long. Solicitor Fenwick, summoned in desperation, finds the entire business insufferably messy. The evidence, such as it is, points squarely at Cressida; the social codes of Edwardian England ensure that a duchess's word is worth rather less than a servant's; and the real murderer, Eleanor suspects, is still comfortably seated among the company.

What follows is a country house enquiry conducted with impeccable manners and a deeply improper amount of snooping. Eleanor traces financial deceit through a tangled family trust, examines the dinner table itself for clues the police have overlooked, and confronts the particular cruelty of a man whose death has solved rather a lot of inconvenient problems for his heir. With Fenwick's legal persistence and her own stubborn observation, she assembles the evidence for a reckoning the guilty party never expected.

Charmingly British, delightfully deadly, and served with a twist of humour, The Duchess Didn't Do It is Book 5 of The Marchioness of Merritt Mysteries — a Victorian and Edwardian historical mystery series for readers who want airtight plotting, lived-in period detail, and a female sleuth who observes the absurdity of her world with affectionate contempt. Ideal for fans of the Violet Carlyle Mysteries, Beth Byers, and the Duchess of Stortford series.