Pamela Branch – författare

Clifford Flush founded the Asterisk Club in Chelsea to provide a home for wrongfully acquitted murderers, being one himself. Qualified prospective members need only name the club as beneficiary in their wills in order to avail themselves of its comforts and unique services. Unfortunately, there isn't room for Benjamin Cann, a gentleman's outfitter newly acquitted of murdering his mistress. So Flush arranges for Benjamin to be temporarily quartered next door in a rat-infested house inhabited by two artistic couples. When Benjamin and a female member of the Asterisk Club turn up dead, the two households both have reason to avoid the police and dispose of the bodies ...'Ingenious and successful farce' Sunday Times

Other than her Uncle George, Sukie was the only member of the notorious Heap family who was still at large. Her great-grandfather, who had invented a particularly nasty machine gun, was immortalised in wax at Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors. So was Sukie's grandmother, who one day had taken an axe and disposed of five of her neighbours. Sukie's mother later tried her hand at arson and was sent to a mental institution. Sukie defiantly explained, as had her mother before her, that insanity did not run in the family. The Heaps were definitely being maligned. But, naturally, when Mr Bentley turned up dead with a bloody axe at his side, Sukie's husband figured she was at last taking up the family trade'A charnel-house frolic' The Spectator

Clifford Flush had not murdered anybody for years. But when he felt the urge to kill his bridge partner he was blackmailed into leaving London. He and his fellow Asterisk Club members, all of whom had been wrongfully acquitted of at least one murder, establish themselves as professional homicide consultants in the ugliest manor house in Dorset. After all, if they could commit the perfect murder why not share that knowledge with the world - for a handsome fee? Flush conducts classes on Grips, Knots, Electricity, Court Etiquette and Alibis. Mrs Barratt teaches Anatomy and Forensic Medicine. Colonel Quincey specialises in Automobiles and Firearms. Everything is going just fine until a member of the 26th class has the effrontery to get himself murdered on the premises.

Short-tempered Enid Marley had a foolproof system for answering queries from the many fans of her advice column in You magazine, but she had no sense at all when it came to solving her own problems.When her latest husband strays, she decides to get his attention with a fake suicide attempt, but her plan misfires horribly. While she's teetering on the window ledge outside her office waiting to be noticed, hands reach out for her, causing her to lose her balance. She survives, thanks to a well-placed awning and an unfortunate passer-by, leaving everyone to wonder: did she fall, or was she pushed? 'Incomparable Pamela Branch' Carolyn G Hart

A comedy of manners and the odd dead bodyLondon is full of clubs. The Garrick, for example, caters to those with theatrical inclinations, the Athenaeum to eggheads. But the Asterisk may have the strictest membership regulations: Acquitted murderers only.Happily, Benjamin Cann fits the brief. Sure, he strangled Rachel Bolger with a length of pongee silk, but the jury thought different, so while Benji's old landlord may not want him back, the Asterisk gang—suave Clifford Flush (pushed ladies off trains), Mitteleuropean sexpot Lilli Cluj (crushed her husband with a bumper-car), et al.—offers a warm welcome. Benji doesn't love the thought of sharing digs with people more than usually inclined to poison the sherry, but the motherly Mrs. Barratt (dosed Mr. B with ground glass) is delighted. So nice to have fresh blood. And it will be such fun to watch him meet the neighbors!

Clifford Flush, happily—if wrongly—acquitted of and semi-contentedly retired from the pursuit of murder, has not felt the need to off anyone in ages. Sure, he fled London when the return of the old urges left him open to a spot of blackmail, but he's been doing fine—thriving, in fact. He and the other members of the Asterisk Club, all murderers the law couldn't manage to hold, have turned the gory business of killing into a legitimate business venture: they've set up a homicide consultancy firm and are teaching discerning students the ropes (and guns, and getaways). Nice work if you can get it...or it is until one aspiring killer turns up dead on their very own premises. It's an intolerable embarrassment, and the culprit must be found out!