Superfluous Women: A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery

The shadow of WWI hangs over Dunn’s affecting 22nd mystery set in 1920s England (after 2013’s Heirs of the Body). To escape the London smog, journalist Daisy Dalrymple and her husband, Scotland Yard’s Det. Insp. Alec Fletcher, have come to the Thames Valley town of Beaconsfield, where a school friend Daisy hasn’t seen in years, Wilhelmina “Willie” Chandler, has bought a house with two other unmarried women. When Daisy and Alec go to a luncheon given by Willie and her housemates, Isabel Sutcliffe and Vera Leighton, the couple find their hostesses without a key to the wine cellar. Alec offers to pick the lock and upon entry into the cellar makes the gruesome discovery of a dead body. With Willie, Isabel, and Vera as murder suspects, Daisy sets out on her own to unearth the truth. Dunn sensitively portrays a largely female society devastated by the war that cost the lives of more than 700,000 British men. [em]Agent: Alice Volpe, Northwest Literary Agency. (June) [/em]