Damsel in Distress: A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery

by Carola Dunn

Overview

A mysterious kidnapping disrupts young love in the latest mystery in Carola Dunn’s beloved Daisy Dalrymple series. Features a Daisy Dalrymple short story — Unhappy Medium.

In the early summer of 1923, love is in bloom as the Honourable Phillip Petrie finds himself totally smitten with Miss Gloria Arbuckle, daughter of an American millionaire. But before the enthusiastic suitor can pop the question, his beloved is abducted by kidnappers. As Gloria's distraught father begins assembling the ransom, Phillip enlists his childhood friend, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple, to help him recover his missing sweetheart. Strictly forbidden to contact the police, Daisy must resist the temptation to bring her occasional collaborator, Scotland Yard's Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher, into the case. But as she closes in on the abductors' rural hideaway, she begins to suspect that Gloria isn't the only fair damsel whose life hangs in the balance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250307415
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/16/2019
Series:	Daisy Dalrymple Series , #5
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

CAROLA DUNN is the author of many mysteries featuring Daisy Dalrymple, including Sheer Folly, Gone West and Heirs to the Body, as well as numerous historical novels. Born and raised in England, she lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Editorial Reviews

It's 1923 in postWW I England, and the Honorable Philip Petrie—aimless, car-loving younger son of an aristocratic family—meets Gloria Arbuckle, daughter of an American millionaire, in the countryside near Malvern. It's love at first sight, but a second meeting ends with the kidnapping of Gloria, a failed attempt by Philip to rescue her, and a note from the kidnappers to Arbuckle demanding a huge ransom and utter secrecy. Philip enlists the help of the intrepid Honorable Daisy Dalrymple, a childhood friend and neighbor in the woodlands where Gloria and her captors are holed up. Daisy resists the temptation to bring her beloved Detective Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard into the picture. She eventually finds the captors' well-hidden shack but then is captured herself. Her escape, leaving Gloria behind, forces the kidnappers to move their hideaway, and now Fletcher, along with some of Daisy's trusted friends and servants, band together to ensure Gloria's safe return while her father arranges the money pick-up and Fletcher successfully figures out who's behind it all.

Pretty much the same Dunn mixture (Requiem for a Mezzo, 1996, etc.)—a combo of P.G. Wodehouse and Boys' Own Adventures, laced with reminders of the all-pervasive class distinctions of the era. A dauntless Daisy, and good-natured fun, if a little fey.

Kirkus Reviews