They had explored every avenue, and it seemed that murder was their only salvation.
Reggie and Midge, genteel husband and wife who live in what was the family’s more or less stately home, are now the reluctant managers of Chortlesby Manor Hotel, an English country inn of no particular distinction. But even this transformation will not solve their financial problems. The possibility of succor comes instead in a transatlantic phone call from Midge’s old classmate, Victoria, who is arranging “mystery tours” of the English countryside for American visitors and wants to use Chortlesby Manor as one of the locales of her staged murders.
From the beginning, the mystery tour project is heading for disaster. Dissension, complaints, and shows of temperament abound. These are upstaged, however, by a snowstorm of paralyzing amplitude, which in turn is upstaged when a real murder takes front and center.
As a killer stalks this group of amateur sleuths on holiday, solving murders is no longer fun and games. Too many guests are checking out early from this eerie old English mansion. They’re not settling their bills—or leaving enough useful clues.
“Midge and Reggie have inherited Chortlesby Manor from Reggie’s father Eric, who failed to make it profitable as a country hotel and has taken off for greener fields in Australia. Meanwhile, mystery tour weekends from the US have helped put the inn on its feet, and this one, with a staged murder for the participants to solve, has an involved scenario, hired actors, and a 1930s ambiance…[along with] some cogent observations on 1930s detective fiction and a few well-aimed barbs at contemporary work.”—Kirkus Reviews
A trip to London turns deadly ... until a cat helps foil a nearly purrfect crime.
Larkin's Luxury Tours Number 79 is a traveler's nightmare. The problems started in Zurich, when one of the group died under mysterious circumstances. Now the remaining tour members have landed in London, tight-lipped, fearful, and ready to ask for their money back. It's up to Doug Perkins of PR firm Perkins and Tate to restore their spirits.
Naturally, for the restoration of spirits Doug arranges a pub crawl, and with the help of his cat, Pandora, he's jollying them back into being happy campers (at the best hotels, of course). Then foul play strikes again. Now Doug, assisted by Pandora's feline ability to smell a rat, needs to find out which tourist hides a preference for bed, breakfast, and murder.
"Marian Babson's name on a mystery is a guarantee of quality writing wrapped around an unusual crime."-Houston Chronicle, praise for the author
Nashville’s Bart and the Cousins, in England on a road trip, have a chart-topping song. Unfortunately Bart also has an indictment back in the USA over an underage groupie. Keeping that hot news out of the London papers is a job for Doug Perkins of the PR firm Perkins and Tate. Doug soon finds that you can take the boy out of the country … but he’s still going to run after jailbait. And when Doug thinks the situation can’t get any worse, secrets about love and money start emerging faster than sad notes from the band’s toothless harmonica player.
What’s really going on among Bart and the Cousins is a shocker, but even a spin doctor can’t cover up its deadly consequences. Instead Doug may have to turn from PR to PI … and figure out who committed murder.
“Babson has a coolly amused, ironic voice…[The characters’] antics are reason enough to enjoy this fast-paced mystery.”—Publishers Weekly
A millionaire's pet tabby is the only witness to his catty murder ...
When millionaire Arthur Arbuthnot mistakes gossip maven Annabel Hinchby-Smythe for a decorator-and hires her to redecorate his apartment-the fiscally challenged Annabel can't refuse. When she sees Arbuthnot's tatty London flat, she knows anything will be an improvement. And any gossip she can dig up will be pure gold for the tabloids. But when Arthur is found dead, his frisky relatives begin to lick their chops.
Arbuthnot's beloved tabby, Sally, was the only witness to the homicide-and the sole heir to his estate. Suddenly, cat-hating family members are eager to claim her and control the family fortune. Annabel's only hope to save the cat and catch a killer is to kidnap Sally-and see who comes sniffing around. Once the cat's out of the bag, murder is sure to follow ... "The humor is playful rather than clawed in this slinky feline extravaganza from veteran author Babson."-Publishers Weekly
The cat who swallowed more than a canary ...
A lifetime of craving cuddlier companionship than her hectoring mother has led fortyish Bettina Bilby to board her neighbors' felines-an expectant tabby, a pampered blue-eyed Balinese, a depressed ginger Persian with a cod-liver-oil addiction, and Adolf, an imperious mouser with a patchwork face-for a long holiday weekend.
But a freak storm sets the pigeon among the cats: a carrier bird downed on the doorstep with a tiny load of large, flawless diamonds. And Bettina's dilemma escalates as Adolf gobbles up one of the gems and a succession of elegant but shifty strangers prowl the gardens, offending the cats and bringing in their wake backdoor bloodshed and murder.
In this hilarious tour de chat, Marian Babson goes beyond the many bubbling mysteries she has written to add an element of comic fantasy to the menace of murder.
Someone is trying to kill leading British Shakespearean actor, husband, father, ladies' man, and soon-to-be knight of the realm Winstanley Fortescue. The actor, rehearsing his starring role in the forthcoming play Serpent in the Heather, is conked on the head backstage. He falls off a ladder and lands on the resident pest-control officer, Montmorency D. Mousa (otherwise known as Monty), the company cat. When Fortescue comes to, he finds to his horror that he has become trapped in Monty's body, while the cat, now installed in the heroic frame of the distinguished thespian, has been carted off to the intensive-care unit reserved for humans. How this actor, who has played to the crowned heads of Europe, suffers such indignities as being forced to use a litter box and having to evade his unknown enemy makes this most recent work tops among all the author's delightful novels.
A whisker away from death ...
A summer in England sounds like a great idea for the Harper family-and the house exchange makes it so affordable. Now they've swapped their New England home for a lovely cottage in a village near London. Why, the house even comes with a cat, a shy marmalade named Esmond. Everything seems purrfect ... until someone tries to kill Mr. Harper.
Now the genteel village feels sinister, the snooty next-door neighbor is acting suspicious, and the house is filled with its real owner's secrets. Numerous attempts on Mr. Harper's life convince his wife that they can't pussyfoot around. They need to investigate, starting with what the mousy orange cat knows.
Doug Perkins, his partner Gerry, and their cat, Pandora, have one job to do: spin gaffes into gold. But this cozy little London PR agency-a better environment for Pandora than profits-is about to be involved in a disastrous affaire dentaire. Endicott Zayle, dentist to the rich and famous-as well as to Doug and Gerry-has a problem of royal proportions. He just killed a beautiful woman with an experimental anesthetic. Or did he?
By the time Doug arrives on the scene, the corpse is up and walking around-and someone else is dead instead. With Endicott losing his grip, and a line of women all claiming personal interest in the deceased, scandal is afoot. And so is a second dose of murder. For Doug, Perry, and Pandora, making this mess look good will mean sorting through an old man's madness, a young man's foolishness, and a tooth-and-nail case of cat fighting-no holds barred.
"Those who dread the dentist's chair will crack a smile at this uproarious fourth and final volume in Babson's Perkins and Tate series...A hilarious cast of characters...This is a Mad Hatter's tea party in the dental surgery, with murder thrown in and a Siamese cat taking the role of the dormouse, pouncing at opportune moments. Sparkling comedy."-Publishers Weekly
Doug Perkins doesn't dislike cats-he just isn't especially interested in them. But the struggling young London public relations firm Perkins and Tate can't afford to be choosy about the jobs they take. So when Doug is asked to do the PR for a glorified feline extravaganza called "Cats through the Ages," he doesn't hesitate. But it isn't long before he wishes he had hesitated.
There are some very valuable cats on exhibit-even a few feline celebrities. Then the robbery of a gold statue of Dick Whittington's cat sets nerves on edge. The theft is not exactly a PR man's dream, but this disaster pales in comparison to the gruesome murder that follows. Someone has knocked unconscious the show's organizer, the universally despised Rose Chesne-Malverne, and pushed her into a cage with a pair of feral tigers fancifully named Pyramus and Thisbe-with predictably fatal results. Now it's up to Doug to find an elusive killer who appears to have nine lives of his own.
"The appearance of this second-in-a-series from England will gladden Babson's numerous aficionados in America."-Publishers Weekly
As the Christmas holidays begin at Maude Daneson's rooming house, unsuspecting lodgers receive a most unwelcome present from the person responsible for a series of senseless and bizarre murders, a killer much more cunning than they had suspected.
"A top-notch thriller...The identities of the murderer and the twelve victims come as a stunner."-Publishers Weekly
The outcry when Conan Doyle pushed Sherlock Holmes over the Reichenbach Falls is nothing compared to the chaos that ensues when Lorinda Lucas tries to dispose of Miss Petunia and her siblings. The literary colony of Brimful Coffers is shaken to its foundations. Old feuds are resurrected and new feuds are born as a town full of mystery writers begins to wonder if life has imitated art or vice versa.
