Items related to Sweet Poison
Death comes to dinner at the Duke of Mersham's, and so does a confidant of the new German chancellor Adolf Hitler, in this ingeniously crafted mystery novel set against the background of Anglo-German relations in the summer of 1935. Among the other guests at the duke's influential table are a pacifist bishop, a womanizing politician, a Canadian press lord and his troublesome daughter, and one of the duke's oldest friends-a man vehemently opposed to any accommodation on the part of the English to Hitler's regime-General Sir Alistair Craig VC. It is over the duke's excellent port that death strikes first, when the general may have mistaken a cyanide pill for his medication. The mystery behind the general's unanticipated death intrigues and challenges both Lord Edward Corinth, the duke's younger brother, and Verity Brown, a resourceful young journalist who has come to interview the duchess supposedly for Country Life but in reality for the communist Daily Worker. An unlikely pair, this scion of the aristocracy and young woman passionately committed to social justice cross their class lines and combine their considerable resources to uncover the cause of Sir Alistair's death-only to discover that virtually every guest, and the duke himself, had reason to want the general dead. Death meanwhile strikes again. And again. And this shrewd whodunit will keep readers guessing to the very end.
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About the Author:
David Roberts worked in publishing for over thirty years before devoting his energies to writing full time. He is the author of eight mysteries featuring Lord Edward Corinth and Verity Browne. He is married and divides his time between London and Wiltshire, England.
From Publishers Weekly:
In this workmanlike novel death comes to General Sir Alistair Craig, a WWI veteran with a checkered past, with the serving of the after-dinner port at the lavish home of the duke of Mersham. The setting is England in the '30s. The dinner topic is Adolf Hitler's sudden rise to power. The dinner guests include a pretty communist writer, a pacifist clergyman, a powerful newspaper tycoon and a Nazi. Was Craig a suicide? He was in poor health, despondent over his wife's recent death, and his wartime acts of cruelty to POWs were about to be made public. Or was it murder by cyanide poisoning? Never veering far from formula, this debut historical whodunit provides a sketchily drawn series of suspects snatched straight from central casting. The sleuthing team comprises Lord Edward Corinth, the duke's dashing younger brother, and Verity Browne, the commie scribe with a rich daddy. They clash predictably and set off the occasional romantic salvo, which naturally goes undetected by one another. Roberts neglects the tiresome catalogue of reasons why the obvious suspects would cheerfully murder the general to focus instead on poor Hermione, the drug-addicted daughter of newspaper magnate Lord Weaver. Hermione's travails seem a weird inclusion, since she's pretty much the only guest without a decent motive to kill Craig. Period-piece murder tales are lamentably legion, and this newest entry displays little to distinguish it. (Jan. 1)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherParagon
- Publication date2004
- ISBN 10 0754093301
- ISBN 13 9780754093305
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages380
- Rating
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