Heirs of the Body: A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery

Set in 1927, Dunn’s entertaining 21st Daisy Dalrymple mystery (after 2012’s Gone West) takes Daisy to her childhood home, Fairacres, in Worcestershire. Daisy’s cousin, Lord Dalrymple, needs her help vetting candidates for designation as heir apparent to his title and estate. A number of claimants from the far corners of the British Empire, including a South African diamond merchant and a Jamaican sailor, gather at Fairacres, where drawing-room manners clash with colonial informality and ignorance, much to Daisy’s mother’s dismay. When strange accidents begin to happen, Daisy and her Scotland Yard inspector husband, Alec Fletcher, suspect that one of the candidates will go to great lengths to establish his right of inheritance—perhaps as far as murder. Daisy and Alec must do their utmost to discover a possible killer and protect the innocent as well as the legitimate heir. Fans of Downtown Abbey will be delighted. Agent: Alice Volpe, Northwest Literary Agency. (Dec.)