She is eturning from a job interview as a hat model when she encounters her friend Jasper Rimington. He laments her foundering detective work, but encourages her to call Vernon Hightower, owner of Hightower Books.
When she does Hightower hires her to discover why his celebrated author R.W. May, whose real name is Mayhew, has missed a deadline for the latest book in his series. The recluse author has never been to Hightower's office and he follows a clandestine method of submitting his manuscripts through his solicitor.
As her cover Hightower sends Olive to Blackburn Hall under the
pretense of discussing Lady Holt etiquette book. Olive discovers R.W. May has lived like a recluse in the village of Hadsworth and no one has seen him close up. Many have seen him wandering the lanes dressed in his tweeds with a colorful tie and pocket square. Most prominent is the mask he wears to cover a war injury.
His typist has never seen him either. Anna Finch, daughter of the local doctor, types the manuscripts and returns the typed pages to May by dropping them through the mail slot at the cottage. Even she has not seen him.
Olive is determined to meet him, but Anna says he left her a note saying he was going to be away for a while. This sends Olive to his cottage to snoop. After a thorough search she realizes the cottage doesn't look like someone was planning to be away. As she walks back to Blackburn Hall, she discovers Lady Holt's eccentric sister Serena clambering up the riverbank. Serena announces that she has found a body.
And there, my friend, the plot thickens.
I love this series and cannot wait to read the next one The Egyptian Antiquities Murder.
1 comment:
Thanks so much for posting about Murder at Blackburn Hall! :)
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