Stone Dead — Jennie Melville

Chief Superintendent Charmian Daniels is expecting a pleasant evening at the opening of her friend's new bookshop, until a gruesome discovery is made. A stone coffin is found in the garden containing the body of a woman.

Winifred Eagle and Birdie Peacock, white witches of Windsor, are preparing for the opening of their new bookshop, which will specialize in crime fiction. So perhaps they are extra-sensitive to the mystery that is currently dominating local news - the disappearance of two Windsor women.

But they would be even more disturbed if they knew what Chief Superintendent Charmian Daniels now knows - that four other women have gone missing from the surrounding areas. And that with every disappearance the local police have received a letter containing the victim's name and one of her possessions.