DEATH AND THE SINGING BIRDS

A chef risks her romance to solve a murder.

Nell Drury, the chef at Wychbourne Court, home of Lord and Lady Ansley, owes a great deal to the murders that introduced her to her love interest, DCI Alexander Melbray of Scotland Yard. The couple’s jobs keep them apart until the Ansleys’ new neighbor, French model and war heroine Lisette Rennard, is murdered. Soon after her husband, famed artist Sir Gilbert Saddler, purchased Spitalfrith Manor, Lisette and Sir Gilbert were entertaining the Clerries, a group of artists who all used Lisette as a model. Sir Gilbert was planning an exhibit of their work, but Lisette forbade it. When she’s found murdered, all the artists are suspect. Nell is determined to save Mr. Briggs, Lord Ansley’s valet, whose World War I experiences have left him almost nonverbal. Unfortunately, when he was found standing over the body, he said he was the killer, but Nell is sure the victim he was referring to wasn’t the loathsome Lisette. Briggs is friendly with Freddie Carter, another wounded warrior who lives at Spitalfrith and whose amazing garden of hand-carved singing birds has been completely destroyed, possibly by Lisette. Lord Ansley’s pull allows Melbray to investigate, but Nell’s sleuthing alienates him, and Briggs languishes in jail while they both wade through a thicket of suspects and motives.

A golden-age pastiche with a touch of pathos, a troubled romance, and believable characters.