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Learn moreIn this classic parlor mystery from CWA Diamond Dagger winner Catherine Aird, Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan investigates a dinner party that ended in murder.
Twelve friends sit down for supper at Strontfield Park, but only eleven survive the evening. After dinner, the host, William Fent, offers to drive one of his guests home, only to die behind the wheel in a violent accident. The autopsy shows that Fent ingested enough barbiturates to kill a horse.
So begins a fresh tale of murder and deceit for Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan, whose list of suspects begins and ends with the surviving dinner guests. Among them are a theologian at the local university; Dr. and Mrs. Washby, whose wedding was the cause for celebration; Ursula Renville, tall, graceful, and utterly aloof; the fat and extravagant Mr. and Mrs. Marchmont; the spinster Miss Paterson; the rector’s daughter, Cynthia Paterson; Quentin Fent, heir to the Fent fortune; and Mr. Fent’s wife, the now-widowed Helen. Each of the guests had the opportunity to kill William Fent. But which one wanted him dead?
Catherine Aird is the author of more than twenty crime fiction novels and several collections of short stories, most of which feature Detective Chief Inspector C. D. Sloan. She holds an honorary MA degree from the University of Kent and was made a member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. She has been awarded the CWA Golden Handcuffs award for lifetime achievement and the Diamond Dagger for an outstanding lifetime’s contribution to the genre in 2015.
Derek Perkins is a professional narrator and voice actor. He has earned numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration, as well as numerous Society of Voice Arts nominations. AudioFile magazine named him a Best Voice consecutively in 2014, 2015, and 2016. Augmented by a knowledge of three foreign languages and a facility with accents, he has narrated numerous titles in a wide range of fiction and nonfiction genres.
Reviews
“Narrator Derek Perkins handles members of a wide cast, giving a subtle characterization to each one. When 12 guests sit down to dinner in an English country house and only 11 survive to the following morning, all the ingredients of a classic British whodunit are neatly lined up. Perkins’s portrayals of the slightly world-weary Inspector Sloan and his eager young sidekick spotlight the author’s wit, while his pacing keeps the plot moving through the various twists, turns, and red herrings. Although this book was first published in the early 1980s, the story stands the test of time, and Perkins’s narration helps to make this mystery even more enjoyable.”
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