Anne Morice
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Some fast thinking would be required, if I were not to get my head chopped off on the coming Friday.
When Mrs Trelawney, a much-married Australian of considerable fortune, bought the big house at Sowerley, the locals hoped her money would help enrich the locality and the community. Instead they found themselves in a cold war.
When Tessa Crichton arrives in the neighbourhood to stay with some old friends, there is a tense atmosphere as the established...
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I had detected no sound or movement, but her eyes were open and, as I approached, she fixed them on me with an agonized stare.
Tessa Crichton, actress, wife of Scotland Yard Inspector Robin Price, comes to Storhampton to star in the local drama festival ... and finds her most challenging role in a masquerade ending in murder. It begins when the insufferable Edna Mortimer sees her exact double at the races-and is literally scared stiff.
Somebody has...
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'I've got the details written down here for you. It's a little matter of a murderous assault, which took place in or near the Marshes' tea estate.'
When Christine Marsh returns to live in the Sussex town where she grew up, the only person to greet the news with enthusiasm is her nearly senile mother Dolly. Christine's put-upon cousin Martha Kershaw knows how selfish Christine is: Martha takes care of Dolly with little recompense and has now been...
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'Not complaining, are you? Right up your street, I should have thought. Solving the odd murder between professional engagements is your forte.'
When the rare chance occurs for Tessa Crichton and her policeman husband, Robin, to have a three week holiday together it is with some misgivings that Tessa agrees to spend the time at a luxury hotel in the West Country.
Her misgivings are confirmed when she realises that Robin's insistence in going to Mattingly...
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He was confronted by the sight of his wife sagging full length on the sofa, where she had been since approximately half past six, when she was strangled to death with one of her own silk scarves.
Death isn't in the script of the comedy slated to open in London's West End. But bloody bad luck during rehearsals has convinced actress Tessa Crichton that the first night of Elders and Betters will be its last. Even a charming plot can't help the doddering...
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When she turned round I saw that she had a carving knife in her hand.
Why has Pelham Hargrave returned to his childhood home after twenty-five successful years in Canada and the United States, and is his beautiful and neurotic young American wife quite what she claims to be? Why has a celebrated Hollywood director chosen to retire to a remote English country house, and why does one young woman covet the house and another loathe it? Above all, what...
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It was unlikely that many had actually prayed for the murder of Mr Waddington, and they did not light beacons on the Downs or rejoice openly when it came about, but most had probably uttered a silent word of thanks.
There is no shortage of murderous feelings among the eccentric country folk opposed to the development of a new 'model village'. But when a nosy estate agent and her friend peer into the windows of the country house at the centre of the...
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"I am absolutely certain that someone is trying to kill me," she announced, which was pretty run of the mill compared to most of her ghastly secrets over the years.
Tessa Crichton is appearing in a West End play when her old school friend Anne reappears in her life. Anne and her baby daughter are living in her lover's family manor, while the latter's wife and teenaged daughter inhabit a cottage on the grounds. Pregnant again, possibly with a much...
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'Stabbed?' she repeated, in horror. 'Was he really?'
'I'm afraid so. From behind. He was sitting at his desk.'
The soignée actress Tessa Crichton would rather be shopping and generally luxuriating in the pleasure of being newly married. However, she is soon embroiled in a plot involving an old acquaintance (murdered) and a friend (blackmailed). Being as shrewd as she is mischievous she begins to draw various conclusions, not all of them correct.
Many...
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'He wants to see you, personally. He's Detective Meek, he's from Homicide, and chances are he's come to report a killing.'
Tessa Crichton, actress and unwitting private detective, joins the cast of Host of Pleasures-a hit West End play opening its American run in Washington D.C.
All is not well backstage. Artistic temperament, old hates and new jealousies combine to create an explosive atmosphere among the cast. When one of the actors is found dead,...
11) Dead on Cue
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'Ever heard of the Alibi Club?,' Robin asked when he was driving me home after one of the most disastrous first nights in theatrical history.
When Tessa's Scotland Yard husband Robin is invited to speak at the renowned and respectable Alibi Club, she is excited to be surrounded by the members - all mystery writers of the first rank - although one is missing.
Crime novelist and playwright William Montgomerie has died, leaving behind a widow and a...
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'So what tips do you need of a criminal nature?'
'Oh, nothing complicated. Just the basic rules for committing the perfect murder will do to be going on with.'
The Rotunda in Dearehaven has a reputation as one of the most distinguished theatres in the country. Its success is due to its owner, Elfrieda Henshaw, a strong-willed woman whose character and methods have moulded a professional and happy company.
Tessa Crichton joins the cast of the new...
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'You'll be the death of me one of these days. I'm telling you.'
'I'll be the death of myself first,' I replied.
The soignée young actress Tessa Crichton is in dazzling form when Robin, her husband and Scotland Yard detective, suggests sleuthing in the Sussex village of Burleigh. The area has recently seen a number of art thefts, but the stakes are raised considerably when murder most foul occurs at a local party . . .
Tessa of course cannot resist...
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'Poor woman, how she must wish she had never come!'
Prophetic words, if ever I heard any.
The actress Tessa Crichton's cousin Ellen is engaged - but to someone she has known only a fortnight. The man appears rich, presentable and mad about Ellen, but Tessa is worried about the reaction of his former amoureuse, and indeed about that of Ellen's own ex-boyfriend, a bibulous and self-pitying actor.
Plans go ahead for a splendid white wedding, and the...
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'Going somewhere nice for lunch?' he enquired.
'No,' I said. 'As a matter of fact, I'm going straight back to the country. Something tells me there isn't a minute to lose.'
The scene of the crime is a large Victorian Rectory. An aged and famous opera singer dies; she has been ill for some time and initially her death would appear to be natural. But her will, signed on the day she died, causes both astonishment and considerable ill-feeling among her...
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She lay on her back, her head and shoulders at an unnaturally curved angle, as though she had arched herself in a last tremendous convulsion as death overtook her. The grass around her was stained with blood and a dart was sticking out above the neckline of her dress.
This is a sparkling whodunit in the best Anne Morice style: the action takes place in and around an ostentatious stately home where murder strikes at the garden fête.
The gala is being...
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"I should warn you that it is not a pretty story."
"Stories about murder rarely are."
Nobody knows who started the rumor that James McGrath murdered his wife Rosamund. Certainly, no one had seen her in a while, and she had gone off to visit a sick cousin without mentioning a trip to the neighbors. Still, everyone was inclined to accept the story, that is, until one of the neighbours meets the cousin in town, in excellent health and eager for news...
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Dangerous secrets score high at an exclusive girl's school . . . but top marks belong to murder.
Actress Tessa Crichton has mixed reactions to being on the panel of judges at the annual inter-house competition of the Waterside Drama and Ballet School, her alma mater. When she arrives on campus, the headmistress is having an affair with the founder's husband, a kleptomaniac is on the loose among the budding thespians, and the beloved and bewildering...
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'For God's sake don't get the idea that you're Miss Marple. It could quite conceivably lead to your being whacked on the head.'
The narrator of this classic mystery is fashionable young actress, Tessa Crichton-obliged to turn private detective when murder strikes in the rural stronghold of Roakes Common. Leading hate-figures in the community are Mr. and Mrs. Cornford - the nouveaux riches of the local Manor House - suspected by some of malicious...
20) Treble Exposure
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'How was she killed?'
'Strangled, I gather, with her own silk scarf.'
A murder involving a group of Americans on an English 'Mystery Tour' has actress Tessa Crichton investigating members of the group, including a young lady recently released from a psychiatric hospital who claims she is seeing ghosts.
When a woman is found strangled, Tessa is on the case, along with detective husband Robin. But, it will be Tessa's insight that helps Robin to solve...