Virginia Freer
4 total works
Whenever Felix, Virginia Freer's estranged husband, reappears in her life, murder does too. Even when temporarily incapacitated by an accident, Felix brings mystery with him.
This time it concerns Holly, orphaned daughter of a famous actress, who had come from Rome to stay with Virginia's friends, the Brightwells. Holly has disappeared, believed kidnapped, and distraught Ann Brightwell is prepared to sell her valuables to meet the ransom demand. But Felix senses something odd about the kidnapping and is convinced the ransom shouldn't be paid . . .
While her faithful friend Virginia watched by the bedside, rich old Mrs Arliss passed away peacefully in her sleep - and left behind a legacy of violent death. A greedy niece, a pompous nephew, a hopeful distant relation and a hungry solicitor each expect a tidy sum out of her estate, but all they are in for is murder.
A valuable collection of miniatures is missing, the sinister caretaker couple have vanished and a body is lying stone dead on the drawing room floor . . .
When Virginia Freer spends a weekend with her friends the Boscotts the last person she expects to meet is the lying, light-fingered charmer who was her husband. She and Felix have been separated for several years.
Yet within a few hours of a party given to celebrate the engagement of a local poet and a best-selling novelist, the novelist's sister arrives distraught on the Boscotts' doorstep to announce that she has found her shot dead in their bungalow next door. And when Virginia, Felix and the Boscotts reach the scene they find that something very strange has happened to the corpse . . .
The dog was old and unappealing - which may have been why Virginia Freer decided to adopt him; that and the fact that he had belonged to her mother's old friend Helen Lovelock, who had recently died.
The tensions evident among the mourners at Helen's funeral soon erupt, and before long one of them is dead, and so is the dog. When Virginia calls in her ex-husband Felix, the Freers discover the death was convenient for several who attended the funeral. But why should anyone poison the dog? Yet someone had - and therein lay the solution to the murder . . .
'An engrossing whodunit' Publishers Weekly