Mad About the Boy?

It is 1923 and there is a summer ball being held at Hesperus to celebrate the silver anniversary of Alice and Phillip Rivers.  Unfortunately, one of the guests mars the celebration by committing suicide.

Jack Haldean, nephew of the Rivers isn’t sure that it was a suicide.  How can he convince the police, since the Chief Constable has already declared it a suicide?

The following morning a Russian turns up at the house and accosts one of the guests.  Alfred Charnock, a relative of the Rivers, speaks Russian to him and then turfs him out of the house.  He apparently is a Bolshevik!

Haldean and three of his friends work at some theories amongst themselves.  A maid had heard what she thought was a shot.  Could it have been a firework?  After checking in the fireplace, where a firework might have gone off, the group agree that the so-called suicide could very well have been a murder.  Then it comes to light that the victim, who worked for a lord, might not have been the intended victim.  Maybe the lord, who in reality is a bit of a scammer, was the intended victim.

Could this be true, because he is stabbed to death in his room the next day!  It appears that the culprit is Haldean’s good friend, Arthur Stanton, and he is caught red handed!

Haldean’s friend, Superintendent Ashley, returns to begin the investigation.  However a few days later, late at night, just as Haldean and his friends are returning from Brighton, their car is highjacked and another of his friends is taken hostage.  Everyone is sure that Russians were involved in the kidnapping.  One of the girls is also sure that they intended to kill Haldean, but fortunately, he was only wounded in the arm.  What’s going on?

Author Dolores Gordon-Smith has some twists to her plot and a few surprises with hints at suspects before drawing this murder mystery to a close.  A good quick read.