The Most Beautiful House; Gobbolino and the Little Wooden House (Part 3); The Orchestra that Lost Its Voice; Stone Soup; The Man Who Knew Better; How the Polar Bear Became; The Marrog
A very different mystery for Ellery Queen this time. In the equivalent of the British “Country House”-style murder, Ellery and his dad are trapped in a house with a bunch of rather odd characters on top of a mountain while a forest fire blazes around the base. Obviously someone, Dr Xavier, the head of the house, is murdered but for the first time for Ellery Queen there is a finite set of suspects – so can Dannay and Lee (aka Ellery Queen the author) pull off a piece of literary legerdemain without resorting to the tried and tested “person that you’ve overlooked” trick that has been almost a constant in the first six books.
Fethering sleuths Carole and Jude return in a wonderful mystery of bitter rivalries and deep-rooted jealousies Bracketts, an Elizabethan house near the town of Fethering, is about to be turned into a museum. Once the home of celebrated poet Esmund Chadleigh, it has now been decided that it should become a shrine to his life and poetry. But the transition from house to museum is running far from smoothly. For a sudden discovery is made: Buried in the kitchen garden is a human skeleton.
Added by: Kahena | Karma: 11526.37 | Fiction literature | 4 January 2012
3
Noble House
The setting is Hong Kong, 1963. The action spans scarcely more than a week, but these are days of high adventure: from kidnapping and murder to financial double-dealing and natural catastrophes–fire, flood, landslide. Yet they are days filled as well with all the mystery and romance of Hong Kong–the heart of Asia–rich in every trade…money, flesh, opium, power.
Robert Goddard - Days Without Number Nick Paleologus is summoned to the unyielding bosom of his family to help resolve a dispute which threatens to set his brothers and sisters against their aged and irascible father. Michael Paleologus, retired archaeologist and supposed descendant of the last Emperors of Byzantium, lives alone at Trennor, a remote and rambling house on the Cornish bank of the Tamar. A ridiculously generous offer has been made for the house, but he refuses to sell despite the urgings of his children, for whom the proceeds would solve a variety of problems.
