Nell Bray Mystery
4 primary works • 10 total works
Book 2
Book 3
Book 9
Book 11
The suffragette movement has been left the bequest of a valuable painting and, with much grumbling, Nell Bray agrees to collect it. The widower of their benefactress, Oliver Venn, lives with his nephews in a beautiful house in the Cotswolds filled with priceless antiques and objets d'art. But when Nell takes the canvas to Christie's she is told it is a copy, so with outrage and impatience she has to return to the Venn household. One of the nephews, who has just bizarrely jilted his fiancee in favour of a peasant fiddler to save her from poverty, suggests she steal the genuine painting. Somewhat against her better judgement, Nell agrees to the plan, finding that Daniel Venn has fulfilled his part of the bargain by leaving the house open. What he didn't warn her about was that the body of his new bride-to-be would be concealed in his uncle's study. Nell's distrust of the police and her insatiable curiosity forces her to undertake her own investigation into the killing. And she does succeed where the police have failed, but not before the finger of suspicion is laid on more than one wrong person, and someone else falls victim to the real killer.
In the last summer of Queen Victoria's reign it was not considered 'proper' for unmarried women to go travelling with members of the opposite sex. But Nell Bray can't understand why she and a mixed group of her student friends should not stay with an uncle of one of them, and they decide to risk the wrath of their colleges. Their intention is to discuss philosophy and literature and to walk the fells of the Lake District. However, when they arrive they find that Alan's uncle, the 'old man', having spoken out against the Boer War, has been ostracised by the village and is suspected of having murdered the local magistrate's son even though no body has been found. Her curiosity piqued by this tale, and by the old man's unconventional household, Nell determines to separate the facts from the myth. But first of all love gets in the way, and then the old man is discovered dead. At first it seems he chose a spectacular method of suicide to avoid scandal and ill health, but Nell then works out that he could not have killed himself in this way without help and she suspects that one of their party is a murderer ...
The fourth in the Nell Bray series. While tackling a glacier in 1911, the feisty Nell witnesses the recovery of a man's frozen body who had died 30 years before. Because of her presence the man's family turn to her for help - which is when she realizes this was no ordinary climbing accident.
The First World War is over, despite victory England is struggling to come to terms with its aftermath and society can never be the same again. Another battle that has been won is by the suffragettes - women not only have the vote they can also stand for Parliament. Nell Bray, flushed with the success of their campaign, is now searching for someone or some party to support her stand for election. Out of the blue she is approached by the widow of a recently deceased Conservative M.P whose husband had been killed by a firework, however the widow is convinced he was murdered by a political opponent. When she offers to cover Nell's election expenses in exchange for her investigating his death, Nell is at first wary of taking the woman's money for a political end, but when she looks more closely at the circumstances of the ex-M.P's death she agrees. In between the hustings and pamphlet printing, Nell discovers more likely suspects than the man's erstwhile political foe, including someone who is trying to undermine her own campaign. As the votes are counted she unmasks the real killer in a most satisfactory denouement to a delightfully serpentine whodunnit.
Nell is a stewardess on the women's march to celebrate George V's coronation. She notices a float packed with dynamite and aimed at Scotland Yard which she and her friend Simon try to steer off course. But they find themselves held responsible for the device and Simon faces the hangman's noose.