Leave it to Dagobert Brown to suggest that he and Jane travel to Detroit from New York via New Mexico. "It’s more or less on the way," he explains. Jane wonders if their route has anything to do with Miranda Ross, a beautiful WAC Dagobert met in World War II and has been rhapsodizing about ever since. So it’s no surprise that when they get to Alamogordo, Dagobert suddenly remembers that Miranda lives somewhere near there. Soon he and Jane are house guests at Miranda’s luxurious adobe ranch, along with an assortment of other visitors and family members, all of whom are satellites revolving in the saintly Miranda’s orbit. But oddly enough, Miranda is nowhere to be seen—until she’s found stabbed in the chest the next morning. And it turns out that every one of the guests had an opportunity as well as a motive to kill Miranda, who was perhaps not the kind and generous woman she appeared to be. Although Jane protests that "people who pass you the salt and pepper are not murderers," it turns out that one of them is, as with a little help from the homespun local deputy sheriff she and Dagobert eventually discover which of their fellow house guests killed Miranda. First published in 1949, it’s the second in this lighthearted series of screwball mysteries. 

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