Carola Dunn – författare

A roaring twenties murder mystery unfolds amidst a traditional British Guy Fawkes celebration.In the winter of 1924, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher travels to a school friend''s house to witness the estate''s famous Guy Fawkes celebration. But the quaint family manse holds more than a quiet weekend, as severe family tension simmers beneath the surface. The Viscount, the head of the family, is a strict and unyielding man, insisting that everyone - especially his children - meet his unreasonable expectations.On the evening of the bonfire festivities, the Viscount is found dead in his study, apparently having taken his own life. However, the discovery of a murdered guest - a married woman visiting from Australia - raises suspicions. Daisy''s husband, DCI Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard, must unravel the mystery and long-held family secrets before the tragic cycle claims another victim. With Daisy''s keen insight and inquisitive nature, the couple delves into a complex web of intrigue in this riveting 1920s country house murder mystery.In Gunpowder Plot, Carola Dunn crafts an atmospheric historical cozy, filled with suspense, a richly portrayed cast of characters, and the charm of a traditional British Guy Fawkes Day celebration turned deadly. Amateur sleuth Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher shines in this gripping installment of the beloved series.

In March of 1926, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her friend and collaborator Lucy (a.k.a. Lady Gerald) head off for several days at stately home reputed to have the best grotto in the country. Working on a book of follies (architectural), they plan to research and photograph it. Leaving her husband and young twins behind, Daisy is expecting a productive weekend at Appsworth Hall, with the only potential difficulty being keeping Lucy from offending the current owner, a manufacturer of plumbing products. Alas, it''s not to be quite so simple. At the home, they find themselves faced with a curious assortment of people including the abominable, tactless Lord Rydal, who is rumored to be having an affair with one of the guests while at the same time in ardent and artless pursuit of the hand in marriage of another. When the grotto explodes with Lord Rydal in it, it''s not a question of who would do it—as most who''ve met him would be sorely tempted—but who actually did do it.

In July 1923, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple travels to Henley-on-Thames to visit her aunt and uncle, watch the annual intercollegiate rowing races, and spend a quiet weekend with her fiancé, Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard. But things go awry when a murder occurs on her cousin''s team and Daisy is again in the middle.

In the 1920''s, in post-WWI England, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple, newly married to Detective Inspector Alec Fletcher, is asked by her brother-in-law to discreetly investigate a series of poisoned pen letters that many of the local villagers have been receiving. When the pompous and unbearable brother of the local vicar is killed by a very large rock dropped on his head from a great height, it seems clear to all that this campaign of gossip has escalated to murder. With the help of her husband, who''d rather she not get involved in murder, Daisy undertakes to uncover the identity of the viper in the local nest is and who that person has driven to murder before the murderer strikes a second time.

In the summer of 1923, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple makes what should an uneventful research trip to the Museum of Natural History with her nephew Derek and her soon-to-be step-daughter Belinda in tow. But as she interviews the various curators for her article on the museums of London, she soon discovers that the Museum of Natural History is a hothouse of professional rivalry and jealousy, particularly between Dr. Smith Woodward, the Keeper of Geology - responsible for the fossil collection, and Dr. Pettigrew, the Keeper of Minerology - responsible for the Museum''s fabulous gem collection. On a later trip, as closing time nears, Daisy hears two voices followed by a tremendous crash and rushes into the next hall to discover Dr. Pettigrew dead - murdered amidst a pile of dinosaur bones. Daisy''s fiance, Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard, is assigned to investigate and together they must unravel a most baffling case of missing gems, dispossessed European royalty, professional rivalry and murder most foul.

It''s Spring 1923 and love is in bloom as the Honourable Phillip Petrie finds himself totally smitten with Miss Gloria Arbuckle, daughter of an American millionaire. But before the enthusiastic suitor can pop the question, his beloved is abducted by kidnappers. As Gloria''s distraught father begins assembling the ransom, Phillip enlists his childhood friend, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple to help him recover his missing sweetheart. Strictly forbidden to contact the police, Daisy must resist the temptation to bring her occasional collaborator Scotland Yard''s Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher into the case. But as she closes in on the abductors'' rural hideway, she begins to suspect that Gloria isn''t the only fair damsel whose life hangs in the balance...

A novelist has gone murdered and Daisy Dalrymple investigates— in a series that''s "pleasantly reminiscent of the old-fashioned English mysteries of a bygone era." —The Denver Post on Gunpowder PlotIn September 1926, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher visits Sybil Sutherby, a school friend now living in Derbyshire as the confidential secretary to a novelist. Suspecting that something is seriously amiss, Sybil has asked Daisy to discretely investigate. Upon arrival, Daisy finds a household of relatives and would-be suitors living off the hospitality of Humphrey Birtwhistle, who had been supporting them through his thrice-yearly, pseudonymous Westerns. When he took ill, though, Sybil took over writing them while he recovered, only to see the sales increase. Now, she fears that someone in the household is poisoning Birtwhistle to keep him ill and Sybil writing the better-paying versions. But before Daisy can even get decently underway, Humphrey Birtwhistle dies under suspicious circumstances and Daisy now faces a death to untangle, a house full of suspects and a Scotland Yard detective husband who is less than pleased at this turn of events.

In 1925, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, her husband, Alec Fletcher (a Scotland Yard Detective) and their new twin infant children inherit and move to a new, larger house on the outskirts of London proper, in a stage of slight disrepair (thanks to an aged, now deceased, uncle). Set in a small circle of houses and a communal garden, it seems a near idyllic setting. That is until a dead body turns up half-hidden under the bushes of the communal garden, rumors of bootleggers, American gangsters, and an international liquor smuggling operation via black ships turn everything upside down. And it''s up to Daisy - well, Alec with some help from Daisy - to find out who the dead man is, why he was murdered and who did him in!

In early 1925, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, recent mother of twins, resumes her journalistic career by agreeing to write a piece about the Tower of London - the Bloody Tower - for an American magazine. Invited to observe the centuries old ritual Ceremony of the Keys, she''s spending the night (her first time away from her babies) since the complex is locked and guarded, and the high walls are surrounded by a disused moat. Having been given a tour of the Crown Jewels, interviewed and observed the Yeoman Warders, and met the Ravenmaster, Daisy has more than enough material for her article and decides to leave as early as possible the next morning to return to her family. But when walking down the stairs, she almost trips over the dead body of one of the Yeoman Warders. That there''s something seriously amiss cannot be denied, due to the pike sticking out of his back. With her husband, Scotland Yard DCI Alec Fletcher assigned to resolve the case, Daisy once again finds herself in the middle of a case of murder most foul.

In the summer of 1924, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher is off on a summer holiday by the sea with her step-daughter Belinda and Belinda''s chum Deva, and her husband, Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard. Currently three months pregnant, Daisy is anticipating a relaxing, non-dramatic holiday. But Daisy doesn''t have that kind of luck. It seems that a local low-rent Don Juan has been busily seducing the local womanfolk and, in a town this small, no secret is kept for long. A fact that is amply illustrated when the Fletcher''s simple picnic is interrupted by the discovery of a broken body at the foot of the cliff--that of the philandering local innkeeper of bad memory. Like Jacqueline Winspear''s much praised novels about Maisy Dobbs, Carola Dunn vividly evokes the life and times of 1920''s England wrapped in a classic mystery to delight her many fans.

The inimitable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her husband Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher seem to get a reprieve from their sleuthing duties when they are invited to the wedding of their friend, Lucy Fotheringay.Lucy''s grandfather is hosting the ceremony at his beautiful estate and so it promises to be a typical affair with hordes of gossipy aunts and other colorful but not necessarily pleasant relatives. Daisy meets all these characters and observes the ensuing familial fraternization with a certain kind of amusing nonchalance. That is, until Lucy''s great aunt is found strangled to death in her bed. Lucy, in the meantime, has arranged to meet her betrothed in the conservatory, but when she arrives she finds him trying to revive her uncle, who has died-or has he been murdered? And just like that a normally celebratory occasion turns suspicious. Now Daisy must sift through a throng of relatives-aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents- once wedding guests and now murder suspects. And she must find the killer quickly before another family member becomes a corpse.

In the Spring of 1926, the corpses of three men are found in shallow graves off the beaten path in Epping Forest outside of London—each shot through the heart and bearing no identification. DCI Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard, the lead detective, is immediately given two urgent orders by his supervisor at the Yard: solve the murders quickly and keep his wife, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, away from the case! Thankfully, Daisy''s off visiting their daughter at school. But when a teacher is found dead, Daisy is once again in the thick of it. As Daisy tries to solve one murder, Alec discovers that the three victims in his case were in the same Army company during World War I, that their murders are likely related to specific events that unfolded during that tragic conflict, and that, unless the killer is revealed and stopped, those three might only be the beginning.

One morning in April 1924, The Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher finds herself in a most unenviable position. Despite her best attempts to elude the inevitable, she must face her darkest fears and with all strength and courage she can muster, must confront the one person she has tried hardest to avoid - the dentist. But upon arriving for her appointment, she finds the waiting room deserted and adjoining examination room locked with no hint of either Dr. Talmadge or his nurse. Thinking to leave quietly, Daisy''s retreat is halted by the return of the nurse and, with the help of Mrs. Talmadge, the two begin searching for the inexplicably absent doctor. Exhausting all other possibilities, they resort to looking once again in the surgery where they find him stilling in his dentist''s chair with the nitrous mask strapped to his face, the tank of nitrous turned on full, a smile on his face and stone, cold dead.While the circumstances of his death are out of the ordinary, there''s no reason to suspect that it was anything other than a tragic, if inevitable, accident of a careless dope fiend. At least to everyone but Daisy herself. Sure that there is something more than happenstance and an accident involved in the dentist''s untimely death, Daisy is determined to uncover the truth behind a case of what she is certain is murder most foul.

In December 1923, the formidable Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple has decided that for Christmas the family will all gather at Brockdene in Cornwall at the invitation of Lord Westmoor. Her daughter - Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher - is something less than pleased but yields to the demands of her mother, especially as she''ll be there just before the holidays working on another article for Town and Country about the estate itself. But the family gathering quickly goes awry. Brockdene, it seems, is only occupied by the Norvilles - poor relations of Lord Westmoor - and Westmoor himself won''t be joining them. So Daisy, her husband Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard, and their family must spend their Christmas holiday trapped in an ancestral estate with a rich history of lore, ghost stories, rumors of hidden treasure and secret passageways with a family seething with resentments, grudges and a faintly scandalous history.The veneer of civility that pervades the halls of Brockdene, however, begins to wear thin when long-held family secrets threaten to bubble over, and one of the Christmas guests if found savagely murdered. With few clues as to who committed the murder and with too many motives as to why, it is once again up to Daisy to sort out the truth that lies beneath a generation of poisonous secrets.