MILLION DOLLAR BABY

Depression-era old money provides a motive for murder past and present.

British millionaire Creighton Ashcroft arrives in Ridgebury, Conn., to take up residence in Kensington House, a mansion whose previous owner, Henry Van Allen, committed suicide. Smitten at first sight with mystery-writer Marjorie McClelland, he sets out to win her affections. While he’s showing Marjorie the house and grounds, they discover the partially buried corpse of the Van Allens’ former gardener. Marjorie, suspecting that Van Allen’s death was actually murder and stunned by the movie-star looks of investigating officer Robert Jameson, talks him into letting her and Creighton participate in the investigation. The two amateur sleuths are soon chatting up both local suspects and merry widow Gloria Van Allen, who’s already engaged to another man. They hear about embezzlement at the Van Allen factory; a fabulous diamond that was carelessly misplaced; and the death in Los Angeles of Van Allen’s mistress, whose brother-in-law is Marjorie’s neighbor. Creighton’s wealth gains them entree to a party at the widow’s New York mansion, where Van Allen’s brother almost dies of digitalis poisoning and Gloria is arrested. But Marjorie doesn’t believe in Gloria’s guilt. In a violent confrontation at Creighton’s empty mansion she discovers the truth.

A vintage-style mystery that will have readers looking for the resolution of Marjorie’s romantic entanglements in the sequel.