Poppy Denby Investigates
4 primary works • 6 total works
Book 1
Introducing Poppy Denby, a young journalist in London during the Roaring Twenties, investigating crime in the highest social circles
It is 1920. Twenty-two year old Poppy Denby moves from Northumberland to live with her paraplegic aunt in London. Aunt Dot, a suffragette who was injured in battles with the police in 1910, is a feisty and well-connected lady.
Poppy has always dreamed of being a journalist, and quickly lands a position as an editorial assistant at the Daily Globe. Then one of the paper's hacks, Bert Isaacs, dies suddenly and messily. Poppy and photographer Daniel Rokeby (with whom Poppy has an immediate and mutual attraction) begin to wonder if Bert was pushed. His story was going to be the morning lead, but he hasn't finished writing it. Poppy finds his notes and completes the story, which is a sensation.
The Globe's editor, realising her valuable suffragette contacts, invites her to dig deeper. Poppy starts sifting through the dead man's files and unearths a major mystery which takes her to France--and abruptly into danger.
Book 2
Poppy Denby, arts and entertainment editor at the Daily Globe, covers an exhibition of Russian art, hosted by White Russian refugees, including members of the surviving exiled Romanov royal family. There is an armed robbery, a guard is shot, and the largest Fabergé egg in the collection is stolen. While the egg itself is valuable, the secrets it contains within are priceless--secrets that could threaten major political powers.
Suspects are aplenty, including the former keeper of the Fabergé egg, a Russian princess named Selena Romanova Yusopova. The interim Bolshevik Russian ambassador, Vasili Safin, inserts himself into the investigation, as he believes the egg--and the other treasures--should all be restored to the Russian people.
Poppy, her editor, Rollo, press photographer Daniel, and the other staff of the Globe are delighted to be once again in the middle of a sensational story. But soon the investigation takes a dark turn when another body is found and an employee of the newspaper becomes a suspect. The race is on to find both the key and the egg--can they be found before the killer strikes again?
Fiona Veitch Smith offers up another rollicking mystery set in 1920s London, when women's emancipation, the jazz age, the consequences of the First World War, and the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution were rearranging the cultural landscape.
"The backdrop of the mystery is just as rich as the action itself. . . . The Kill Fee is enjoyable and upbeat, perfect for cozy-mystery fans who appreciate historical settings."
--Foreword Reviews
Book 3
Book 5
"Poppy Denby's back doing what she does best, and this time in Newcastle! Cleverly plotted as always, with an exceptional eye for detail and a fabulous amateur sleuth, Veitch Smith carries us back once more to the Golden Age for this delicious murder mystery." Jacky Collins (Dr Noir)
It’s 1924 and Poppy Denby is heading up to Northumberland to celebrate her father’s sixtieth birthday. She stops off in Newcastle en route to visit her Aunt Dot, who has temporarily relocated from London to renovate a house she’s inherited.
One of Aunt Dot’s guests is the world-renowned artist, Agnes Robson, who is staging an exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery. Reluctantly, Poppy is roped in to help when the artist’s press liaison man falls ill.
She soon discovers that the local press has dug up some dirt on Agnes relating to the tragic death of a young art teacher in Ashington Colliery, twenty-seven years earlier. As she tries to suppress the story, Poppy begins to suspect that the teacher might have been murdered and that the killer may still be on the loose…
The 1920s most stylish sleuth returns in The Crystal Crypt for another thrilling murder mystery!
“But accidents can still happen… Perhaps there was something out of her control, something she couldn’t have foreseen…”
“Like someone plotting to kill her?”
Reporter sleuth Poppy Denby is asked to investigate the mysterious death of an up-and-coming female scientist in an Oxford laboratory known as the Crystal Crypt. The official verdict is that Dr June Leighton died in a tragic accident, but Dr Leighton's lab assistant believes it was murder. However, when Poppy discovers that the colleague has spent time in a mental institution and has an unresolved murder in her own past, Poppy wonders if she is being misled. But then, another female academic is attacked, and Poppy herself becomes a target.