A DAGGER BEFORE ME

A leisurely journey around England to take in some ancient ceremonies ends in a curious murder investigation.

When American expatriate Dorothy Martin is struck by spring fever, her husband, retired Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt (Crisis at the Cathedral, 2018, etc.), suggests they travel to see some of England’s more exotic customs. Although Alan’s connections get them into a few rituals not open to the public, their next murder case is provoked by a chance encounter with Sir Edwin Montcalm, whose uncle was a friend of Alan’s. Alan even attended Edwin’s christening back in the day, and Edwin now asks Alan to be godfather to his son since all his own relatives are dead. In another of those odd English traditions, the newborn son must be christened in the presence of a jeweled dagger long in the family’s possession in order to inherit the entailed estate. Days before Christmas, Dorothy and Alan, arriving at Dunham Manor in Suffolk for the christening, are met by a frantic Edwin, who tells them that the dagger’s vanished. Apart from anything to do with finances, Edwin tends to fall apart in family crises. Luckily, his stunning Canadian wife, Judith, is far stronger than him. Dorothy is taken with baby Joseph and his sisters, Cynthia and Ruth, and is pleased when Alan offers his expertise in finding the dagger. That expertise is required even more urgently when the discovery of a woman’s body with a jeweled dagger in her back brings the police to Dunham Manor. The dagger is only a clumsy copy, but Alan realizes that Edwin’s hiding something and finally gets him to admit that the victim, Angela Wilson, turned up on his doorstep claiming to be his birth mother. Naturally, the police are suspicious of Edwin. It’s up to the sleuthing duo to find out who hates Edwin enough to frame him for murder.

An Anglophile’s delight piled high with enchanting details of arcane rituals, all neatly wrapped around a nice little case of murder.