Andrew Basnett – serie

Christmas in Adelaide promises to be a pleasant vacation for Andrew Basnett, retired professor of botany and amateur sleuth. But the shadow of an unsolved murder hangs over the lives of his hosts, Tony and Jan Gardiner. The police still suspect Jan of her first husband's murder - and then a second killing takes place under the same bizarre circumstances. What can a guest do in such a case but try to clear the name of his hostess and solve the crime?'Very readable' Glasgow Herald

Andrew Basnett, retired botany professor, accompanies an old friend, whose sister has received a blackmail letter, to her home in a Berkshire village. The letter had obviously been put in the wrong envelope, but it seems to indicate that a murder has been committed in Lindleham, where, strangely, several people are missing. But as Andrew quietly investigates the neighbours, the realisation dawns that his friends, too, have something to hide.

When Andrew Basnett meets his nephew by chance at the seaside, he finds himself drawn into a social whirlwind that culminates in an invitation to dinner at the home of novelist Simon Amory. But the evening quickly sours when Amory's sister is murdered, and it is Basnett's nephew who was the last person to see her alive.

In this, his third adventure, Professor Andrew Basnett takes a brief break from his usual stomping grounds in the Little English Village, opting to spend Christmas in a Small Australian City instead. He’s visiting Tony, an old colleague with a newish wife, and he’s barely had a post-flight snack before he’s made aware of a cloud hanging over the marriage. Jan, Tony’s bride, is widely believed to have bashed her first husband over the head, and though she was acquitted of the murder, Tony himself is starting to have uncomfortable second thoughts. Things don’t get any more comfortable when, at a family dinner, one of the guests is done in, killed with a chunk of the same crystal that put paid to Jan’s first husband. And Jan herself? She’s disappeared. Only the Professor, it would seem, can banish the clouds of distrust and reveal the truth, clear as crystal.