Dancing With Death

by Amy Myers

Overview

Introducing chef-sleuth Nell Drury in the first of a delightful series of 1920’s traditional country house mysteries.

1925. The fashionable Bright Young Things from London have descended on Wychbourne Court, the Kentish stately home of Lord and Lady Ansley, for an extravagant fancy dress ball followed by a midnight Ghost Hunt – and Chef Nell Drury knows she’s in for a busy weekend. What she doesn’t expect to encounter is sudden, violent death.

When a body is discovered in the minstrels’ gallery during the Ghost Hunt, Nell finds herself caught up in the police investigation which follows. As the darker side of the Roaring Twenties emerges and it becomes increasingly clear that at least one person present that night has a sinister secret to hide, Nell determines to unmask the killer among them. Could the Wychbourne Ghosts hold the key to the mystery?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781847517944
Publisher:	Severn House Publishers
Publication date:	08/01/2018
Series:	A Nell Drury Mystery , #1
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.55(w) x 8.74(h) x (d)

About the Author

Amy Myers has written a wide range of novels, from crime to historical sagas to contemporary romance. She is married to the American-born car buff James Myers, who has collaborated with her in creating Jack Colby. Other crime novels by Amy Myers include the Auguste Didier series, the Tom Wasp, Victorian chimney sweep novels, and the Marsh and Daughter Mysteries.

Read an Excerpt

This June Saturday evening was going to be a hundred per cent triumph for Wychbourne Court and the Ansley family, Nell Drury vowed, and every inch of her would be concentrating on making that happen, despite the nagging blot on the horizon that refused to disappear.
 The ghost hunt.
 Wychbourne, like old houses everywhere, had its secrets and some of them in the long distant past had been dark ones. Lady Clarice, Lord Ansley’s sister, was bent on reviving them through her devotion to the many ghosts that haunted it – at least, according to her. But even so what could go wrong with a ghost hunt?

Editorial Reviews

2017-03-07
A chef suddenly finds herself acting as a detective in Jazz Age England.Nell Drury is that rare bird, a female chef. Trained in London by Escoffier, she works in Kent at stately Wychbourne Court, home to Lord and Lady Ansley and three of their children, Lord Richard, Lady Helen, and the bookish Lady Sophy. Also in residence are the dowager Lady Ansley, Lord Ansley's sister Lady Clarice, and of course a full complement of servants. As she prepares a dinner for the Ansley's guests followed by a costume ball and a ghost hunt led by Lady Clarice, who's devoted to the family spirits, Nell is happily surprised to learn that her former beau Guy Ellimore is the bandleader for the dance. But she's less happy when Lady Clarice asks her to lead the second group of ghost hunters. Her distaste turns to horror when she discovers the body of Charles Parkyn-Wright, a friend of Richard's who set him on edge by dancing most of the night with Richard's love interest, the beautiful but unpleasant Honourable Elise Harlington. Annoyed herself when DI Alexander Melbray of Scotland Yard mostly ignores her ideas, Nell teams up with guest and neighbor Arthur Fontenoy, who offers to play Watson to her Holmes. Since Lady Ansley also wants her to unmask the killer, she agrees. In addition to making enemies because of his dealings with women, Charlie, as it turns out, has used his connections to deal drugs. A second death makes Nell and Melbray redouble their efforts to find the killer. Suffering succotash! The feisty heroine Myers (Classic at Bay, 2016, etc.) places at the center of this new series has an affinity for food-based alliteration and a knack for discovering secrets. Like so many other cozies harkening back to the past, it supplies plenty of suspects and a surprise ending.

Kirkus Reviews