"Hugo Ross is perfect for the job as irascible inventor Ambrose Minstrel’s new secretary: young, completely inexperienced, and with an occasional stutter that makes him seem somewhat dim—a mug, in fact.
But from his first day, odd things begin to happen. A stranger offers him an absurd amount for an ordinary pair of field glasses; soon, the written offer is stolen from his room. A lovely girl he runs into in the dark one night outside his new employer’s house warns him not to take the job. But when she plans to meet him, and another girl arrives pretending to be her, he wonders what has become of her.
Hugo suspects something sinister and seeks out eccentric Benbow Smith, his sister’s in-law, who seems to have some relationship with the Foreign Office. Smith confirms Hugo’s suspicion that a plot to swindle the government is afoot. Turns out Hugo is not the mug the plotters think he is … which is his greatest asset.
But before he can help unravel the plan, he must first find the girl!"
"This collection offers three novels of adventure and suspense from Patricia Wentworth, each with its own plucky and independent young heroine.
First, Jane Smith is incognito at stately Luttrell Marches, in the middle of a mystery of secret formulae, political plots, and secret passages.
Then, Sally Meredith is entrusted with the red lacquer case containing the formula for her uncle’s new and deadly gas, and is soon in the clutches of sinister foreign agents.
And finally, hard-up dressmaker’s assistant Chloe Dane inherits her family’s ancestral home, and finds herself locked in a struggle with unscrupulous opponents for the sinister content of her late uncle’s safe."
"Hard-up dressmakers’ assistant Chloe Dane yearns for a new life. But when her mysterious relative Mitchell Dane dies, leaving her the ancestral home of her family, and the secret combination to the safe hidden behind the Chinese black lacquer cabinet in the drawing room, she finds herself locked in a struggle with unscrupulous opponents who will stop at nothing to get possession of the safe’s sinister contents …"
"Sally Meredith is in deadly danger after her mercurial uncle “Fritzi,” the genius chemist and inventor M. Frederic Lasalle, disappears into the night. He leaves her as the only person who knows how to open the Chinese puzzle box in which he has concealed the formula for his latest invention: a new gas, sudden, swift, and deadly beyond anything ever before devised. Soon, Sally is in the clutches of sinister foreign agents, and her former fiancé Bill Armitage, of the War Office, with the aid of a Scotland Yard detective, desperately searches for her …"
"Timid Renata Molloy is in mortal peril after overhearing details of a breathtaking conspiracy. But her courageous and near-identical cousin Jane Smith—homeless and just two-and-elevenpence away from the workhouse—is willing to take her place if it means a roof over her head and plenty to eat. So Jane, with the help of Captain Henry March of Scotland Yard, whose hand in marriage she once refused, finds herself incognito at stately Luttrell Marches, enmeshed in a mystery of secret formulae, political plots, and a maze of secret doors and secret passages …"
"From prolific mystery writer, Patricia Wentworth, 'The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith' is more of a thriller than a mystery. This is the tale of plucky Jane Smith; down on her luck, but about to enter a world of anarchists, hidden laboratories, and tumultuous romance!"
