The Pigeon Pie Mystery

Near the outset of Stuart’s zany first mystery, a late Victorian historical, Princess Alexandrina of Prindur (aka Mink), the daughter of an Indian maharajah, faces eviction from her father’s London house after her debt-ridden parent’s death. Mink staves off the creditors for a year until getting a reprieve from the queen, who offers her a “grace-and-favour residence” on the grounds of Hampton Court Palace. Over the reservations of her maid, Pooki, who believes the palace to be haunted, Mink accepts, only to find herself in the midst of a murder inquiry in which she has a personal investment. During a picnic at the palace’s Pond Gardens, a guest expires after eating an arsenic-laced pigeon pie that Pooki prepared. Fans of Stuart’s novel The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise will find the same wit on display. A noblewoman, for example, praises H.G. Wells’s Martians for sparing Hampton Court “as any right-thinking monsters would.” Agent: Gráinne Fox, Fletcher & Company. (Aug.)