Murder Takes a Turn

by Eric Brown

Overview

A country house weekend in rural Cornwall ends in murder and mayhem for crime-writer sleuth Donald Langham and his wife Maria.

“It’s time to let bygones be bygones. Water under the bridge, right? What happened … happened a long time ago.”

When Langham’s literary agent receives a cryptic letter inviting him to spend the weekend at the grand Cornish home of successful novelist Denbigh Connaught, Charles Elder seems reluctant to attend. What really happened between Elder and Connaught during the summer of 1917, nearly forty years before – and why has it had such a devastating effect on Charles?

Accompanying his agent to Connaught House, Langham and his wife Maria discover that Charles is not the only one to have received a letter. But why has Denbigh Connaught gathered together a group of people who each bear him a grudge?

When a body is discovered in Connaught’s study, the ensuing investigation uncovers dark secrets that haunt the past of each and every guest – including Charles Elder himself …

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781847519047
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	07/01/2019
Series:	A Langham and Dupre Mystery , #5
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	931,530
Product dimensions:	5.55(w) x 8.74(h) x (d)

About the Author

Twice winner of the British Science Fiction Award, Eric Brown is the author of more than twenty SF novels and several short story collections. His debut crime novel, Murder by the Book, was published in 2013. Born in Hawarth, West Yorkshire, he now lives in Scotland.

Editorial Reviews

"Well realized characters and a beautifully evoked setting will keep readers engaged"

Booklist

05/28/2018
Brown’s charming fifth mystery set in 1950s England (after 2017’s Murder Take Three) takes part-time private detective and full-time mystery writer Donald Langham and his literary agent wife, Maria Dupré, from London to Cornwall, where egocentric novelist Denbigh Connaught has invited five people he has wronged in the past to a weekend at his estate. Among those he wishes to apologize to is Charles Elder, Maria’s partner in the literary agency, who has painful memories of his school days with Connaught 40 years earlier. Connaught’s daughter, Annabelle, has asked Donald to investigate her father’s business manager, Wilson Royce, whom she doesn’t trust. Soon the guests are assembled at Connaught House, where drinks flow freely, personalities clash, and their host is just as brusque and self-absorbed as ever. When a body is discovered in the locked study, readers are presented with not only a whodunit but also a howdunit. Some delightfully old-fashioned slang enlivens the dialogue. Fans of traditional country house mysteries will be gratified. Agent: John Jarrold, John Jarrold Literary Agency (U.K.). (July)

Publishers Weekly

"Well realized characters and a beautifully evoked setting will keep readers engaged"

Booklist

2018-04-16
An ailing novelist who's done outrageous things to everyone imaginable invites a half dozen frenemies to his Cornwall estate so he can apologize to them. You'd never guess what happens next.Now that he's sacked his agent, Denbigh Connaught wants his old friend Charles Elder to run down to Connaught house for the weekend to make arrangements to represent him. Since Connaught hasn't been a model comrade, Charles isn't eager to make the trip. Neither is lonely Lady Cecelia Albrighton, one-legged World War II veteran Col. James Haxby, artist Pandora Jade, or Denbigh's brother, travel writer Monty Connaught, all of whom have been grievously wronged by their prospective host. But they all overcome their reservations and pack their bags for Cornwall. So do thriller writer and part-time private detective Donald Langham—who's been asked by Connaught's daughter, physician Annabelle Connaught, to tail Wilson Royce, her father's new business manager, and report his findings—and his bride, Maria Dupré, Charles' business partner. None of them realizes any more clearly than Denbigh what will be obvious to any savvy reader: They've been invited out to the country not only to accept their host's apologies, but to serve as suspects when he's murdered. DI Jeff Mallory, of Scotland Yard, gets the case, but although he allows the assembled suspects to smoke and drink through a series of commendably civilized interrogations, it's Donald, as usual (Murder Take Three, 2017, etc.), who carries off the sleuthing honors.Brown's latest return to a golden-age setting and conventions will delight fans avid for improbably clever murder methods, unbreakable alibis, and red herrings by the shoal. The uninitiated will scratch their heads in as much bewilderment as Scotland Yard.

Kirkus Reviews