Lady Lupin Lorrimer Hastings, the young, totally scatterbrained but extremely kind wife to the vicar of Glanville, is off for a bit of rest on the eve of World War II at a country hotel in Kent owned and run by old pal Diana Turner when a series of petty thefts requires that she once again use her odd deductive powers to restore order.

In spite of her best efforts, theft follows theft (Loops hopes it is just a case of justifiable kleptomania). Things get a bit dicier when a guest’s car goes out of control after the steering nut is deliberately loosened. Is it attempted murder? And just who set fire to Orchard House? It could be any one of the guests, a very odd assortment who spend most of their time bickering among themselves. There’s a self-centered lady novelist whose only concern is recovering her “child”—the manuscript to her book; a newly married couple who quarrel most of the time; a retired army officer who seems to have set his cap for any number of women; a vicar’s wife whom Lupin desperately tries to avoid for fear the older woman will see immediately that she is a fraud; her son, a chinless young poet who longs to be a mechanic; a sweet-faced but domineering widow determined to control her spineless daughter’s life; the daughter herself who yearns to make her own home; and a cynical young painter who claims to find beauty only in grim industrial scenes.

As usual, Lady Lupin gets everything wrong, yet somehow stumbles to the truth, as she runs the hotel in Diana’s absence and tries to conceal her highborn origins from a socialist garageman she befriends. Lady Lupin’s first case, Who Killed the Curate?, was a hit with readers and reviewers alike, who helped put it on the bestseller lists of several mystery bookstores.

Reviews

“It is to laugh. It is to giggle and laugh aloud. Then you’ll take time to marvel at the skill of author Joan Coggin.”
—Bookbytes

“A delightful rainy day read.”
—Midwest Book Review

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