ANSWER CAME THERE NONE

Newly divorced journalist Sara Marriot has come from London to the town of Edgewater, taking on the job of ghostwriting the memoirs of gentle, elderly General Schofield. He finds living quarters for her in an apartment in the home of his friend Althea Cannon, an 80-ish widow whose son, Oliver, teaches at the local Agricultural College and lives with her. The basement apartment is occupied by attractive teacher and aspiring author Paul Fryer. Meanwhile, Oliver is thinking of marrying Celia Hancock and moving to Canada—a plan that has moved his possessive mother to change her will, leaving a small fortune to niece Meg Kimberly, wife of farmer Ron, mother of twins Nick and Jill. But before that change can be executed, Althea is found dead in her bedroom—poisoned. Two more killings follow—acts of violence related in a kind of uninflected monotone, interspersed with endless cups of tea, sips of sherry, and the occasional lunch or dinner, as the major characters hash and rehash the various dull facets of the events around them. Bloodless stuff, strictly for Ferrars's devoted following (Danger from the Dead, etc.).