A Most Agreeable Murder

Beatrice Steele lives in Swampshire, a small English township where a strict code of conduct governs how every lady behaves. She is hopeless at needlework and has no gift for music. Worse, she nurses a secret fascination with true crime that would scandalize her neighbours if it came out.

For her family's sake she means to keep it buried. The autumnal ball is close, and her sister Louisa's marriage prospects depend on the family staying respectable.

Then Edmund Croaksworth, an eligible bachelor, drops dead in the middle of a dance. A storm shuts the whole party inside the house, which means the killer is still among them. Beatrice cannot resist the puzzle, and she steps outside the bounds of propriety to work out who did it.

She is not alone in the hunt. A disgraced detective, undeniably alluring, has turned up without an invitation, and the two of them investigate together.

This is a historical murder mystery with a comic edge, built on a closed circle of suspects and a heroine who is out of step with her society. The setting is a country ball cut off by weather, so the pressure comes from manners, suspicion and a corpse in the ballroom.