MRS. JEFFRIES AIMS TO WIN

Housekeeper Hepzibah Jeffries and her cohort of snoopy friends help her employer, Inspector Gerald Witherspoon, solve yet another Victorian murder.

When Witherspoon’s neighbor Luty Belle Crookshank and her butler, Hatchet, attend a competition at the West London Archery Club, they hardly expect to become embroiled in a murder case. Jeremy Marks has been shot by arrows while roaming the archery range in a heavy rainstorm. There’s no dearth of suspects, since he was widely and cordially hated. Witherspoon has solved more murder cases than any other officer, but he doesn’t realize that his success rate depends on the help of his staff and friends, whose wide circle of acquaintances dig up information. Constable Barnes, who’s well aware of the reason for his superior’s superior performance, relays information to Witherspoon without revealing its source, while Mrs. Jeffries has encouraging chats with him over restorative glasses of sherry. Marks had a long history of involving people in shady business deals that always left him in the clear even if his partners went bankrupt. He recently dumped his fiancee in favor of a richer prospect. Both women are members of the archery club, and both are excellent shots. Although there were witnesses on the scene, it was so stormy that they can’t identify anyone. A timeline and a chart of who was where at the time of death help narrow down the suspects, but the answer to the question of whether the motive was a woman scorned or a family ruined depends on Mrs. Jeffries’ trademark tidbits of information.

A charmingly quirky group of amateur sleuths sparks this tricky mystery.