The 1930s country house party packed with crooks, cops, and the usual suspects frame the perfect scene of the crime. This one assembles all the right ingredients--the theft of the fabled diamond necklace, the purloined antique pistols, the secret passage, the ravishing baroness with a past, the body in the lake.... What a pretty puzzle! "Don't expect me to solve anything," Inspector Wilkens announces. But of course, he does: theft, espionage, impersonations (triple, at the very least), blackmail, murder.
The suspects include a noble host and hostess, a jewel thief and foreign agents in disguise, bright young things, mysterious mature men, a Texas millionaire, and, of course, the butler.
Crime connoisseurs will recognize the ingredients for a zany pastiche, a delightful romp paying tribute to the past while titillating the present.
And what does the blood-stained egg cosy have to do with anything?

Review

'Had Dame Agatha not been sitting so securely in her chair I would have hazarded a guess that James Anderson...might be on his way to usurp her position in the hearts and minds of the whodunit-loving public' The Bookseller

About the Author

James Anderson was born in Wiltshire, but his parents, who were Welsh, moved back to Cardiff when he was eight and he has lived in or near that city most of his life, lately in the small seaside resort of Penarth.

He took a degree in History at the University of Reading and worked as a salesman, copywriter and freelance journalist before writing his first novel. His interests include cricket and vintage films, and he is a committed Christian.

He is so far, though not from any lack of inclination, unmarried.