Cornish Mystery
1 primary work • 4 total works
Book 1
Eleanor Trewynn is a widow of some years living in Port Mabyn, a small fishing village in Cornwall. In her younger days, she travelled the exotic parts of the world with her husband. These days, she's retired and founded the local charity shop. Her niece, Megan Pencarrow, transferred nearby, and was recently promoted to the rank of Detective Sergeant. Perhaps the only downside is that she is now working for a DI who doesn't approve of women on the police force and who really doesn't much approve of Megan's aunt Eleanor, as she is something of a thorn in his rather substantial side. All of these factors collide when, the day after collecting donations, Eleanor and the vicar's wife find the dead body of a longhaired, scruffy-looking youth hidden in the stockroom of the charity shop. Then they discover that some donated jewellery thought to be fake is actually very real, very expensive, and the haul from a violent robbery in London. Making matters more complex, the corpse found in the storeroom is apparently not one of the robbers. "Manna from Hades" is a confounding case of daring theft, double-cross, and a wily older woman confronted by a case of murder most foul.
While out on a walk, Eleanor Trewynn, her niece Megan, and her neighbour Nick spot a young, half-drowned Indian man floating in the water. Delirious and concussed, he utters a cryptic message about his family being trapped in a cave and his mother dying. The young man, unconscious and unable to help, is whisked away to a hospital while a desperate effort is mounted find the missing family in time. The local police inspector presumes that they are refugees from East Africa, abandoned by the smugglers who brought them in, so while the countryside is being scoured for the family, Eleanor herself descends into a dangerous den of smugglers in a desperate search to find the man responsible while there is still time.
Eleanor Trewynn is a recently retired widow who has moved to the small village of Port Mabyn in Cornwall. Neither frail nor retiring, after a lifetime of traveling the world, she's ready for an uneventful life with her dog and friends in this quiet town. Unfortunately, excitement seems to happen around her. Her friend and neighbor, artist Nick Gresham, returns from a trip only to find several of his paintings slashed, reportedly by rival local artist Geoffrey Clarke. When Nick goes to have it out with him, with Eleanor in tow, they find Clarke's body in his studio, fatally stabbed in the back. Accused of the crime, Nick ends up in jail, while Detective Inspector Scumble and DS Megan Pencarrow, Eleanor's niece, investigate. But Eleanor isn't leaving anything to chance - she starts doing a little investigating of her own, and soon learns that Nick is far from the only one with a compelling motive for murder.
"After many years working around the world for an international charity in the late 1960s, Eleanor Trewynn has retired to the relative quiet of a small town in Cornwall. But her quiet life is short-lived when, due to her experience, the Commonwealth Relations Office reaches out to her to assist in a secret conference that is to take place in a small hotel outside the historical village of Tintagel. Meanwhile, her niece, Detective Sargent Megan Pencarrow, is investigating the disappearance of a local solicitor when she is assigned to help provide security for the conference. Two African students, refugees from Ian Smith's Rhodesia, arrive for the conference, escorted by Megan's bête noire from Scotland Yard. They are followed by two mysterious and sinister Londoners, whose allegiances and connections to the conference and the missing solicitor are unclear. With a raging storm having trapped everyone in the hotel, the stage is set for murder, and it's up to Eleanor and Megan to uncover the truth before more lives are lost"--