Letty Davenport seeks to infiltrate a group of freelance hackers in order to thwart their next project-or maybe to help it along. Yes, there’ll be another murder, but no, whatever it seems, the Marlow Murder Club is never in danger of losing control.Īs anodyne as a village fair and as fiendishly clever as one of the many crossword clues embedded in the story. Starting while the corpse is still cooling on the floor, they venture a series of deductions as keenly observant and remorselessly logical as they are unlikely. It’s all a massive headache to DS Tanika Malik and DI Gareth Hoskins, who snatches the case away from her, and it’s all catnip to sharp-witted retiree Judith Potts and her two buddies, vicar’s wife Becks Starling and Suzie Harris, a dogsitter who has her own radio program. The study door is locked the only key is in Sir Peter’s pocket and every plausible suspect, from Sir Peter’s intended to his two children to Chris Shepherd, the White Lodge gardener who has every reason to hold a grudge against his employer, has a solid alibi. At the party at White Lodge, the unlucky bridegroom, Sir Peter Bailey, quarrels with Tristram, the son he plans to disinherit in favor of his bride, nurse Jenny Page, but doesn’t even get to greet most of his guests before he’s found dead in his study, crushed under a heavy cabinet. You know someone’s in serious danger of dying when he phones you out of the blue the day before his second marriage, asks you to a party that afternoon, and assures you that no one in attendance expects to be murdered. It’s time for another round with the brainiest trio of amateur sleuths on either side of the Atlantic.

The marlow murder club 2