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GUNPOWDER PLOT by Carola Dunn

GUNPOWDER PLOT

by Carola Dunn

Pub Date: Sept. 25th, 2006
ISBN: 0-312-34989-0
Publisher: Minotaur

A very pregnant Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher visits the Cotswolds estate of Edge Manor to write a piece on the Guy Fawkes celebration, a massive fireworks display with murder as its finale.

Sir Harold Tyndall is a snobbish domestic tyrant whose family can never please him. Martin Miller, an aeronautical engineer who’s encouraging Jack Tyndall to join his firm, is anathema to Sir Harold, who wants his son to manage the estate currently being run by Jack’s sister Babs, a woman and therefore incompetent in her father’s eyes. Daisy’s old school friend Gwen is romantically interested in Miller, and the whole family must cope with the escapades of the hellion sons of their obnoxious sister Adelaide. Daisy’s top-drawer pedigree and her genuine interest in the Gunpowder Plot celebration placates Sir Harold until Jack invites Mr. Gooch, an Australian with an English wife, to share a buffet dinner and view fireworks from the terrace. When Sir Harold and Mrs. Gooch are found dead, the Chief Constable calls on Daisy’s husband, DCI Alec Fletcher. A plan by Sir Harold to change his will makes Jack the obvious suspect, especially as he may not be the legitimate heir. But Daisy won’t believe Jack is guilty. While Alec and his team question the suspects, she does some sleuthing on her own.

Fans of the dauntless Daisy (Fall of a Philanderer, 2005, etc.) will delight in this Anglophilic period mystery.