Spence in Petal Park — Michael Allen

Can a case be solved in just three days?

Roger Parnell is a rich, good-looking young man, living in the plushest suburb of a South Coast resort.

When he is found dead in his driveway three days before Christmas, Detective Superintendent Spence immediately gets to work.

Spence believes in method, groundwork, and a proper filing system. In a mobile police unit near the scene of the crime, the investigation is soon under way.

And there's plenty to investigate.

Parnell's life-style included sharp business practices, an unhealthy interest in the girls at the expensive school behind his house, blackmail and seduction.

Interviewing Parnell's neighbours, associates and lovers, Spence soon concludes that plenty of people had cause to hate him.

But which of the apparently sensible, ordinary people behind the privet hedges of exclusive Petal Park actually killed him?

Spence in Petal Park weaves the stories of the people in Parnell's life into a complex web of cause and effect, which Spence's careful work finally unravels -- just before Christmas.

Praise for Michael Allen

‘A well-crafted, gripping thriller' â€" Thomas Waugh

‘Entertainment in the traditional style' â€" Kirkus Reviews

‘old-time-whodunit'- Kirkus Reviews

Michael Allen is an award-winning writer who has published about twenty full-length novels, mostly crime fiction and thrillers. These novels have appeared in a variety of hardback and paperback formats in the UK, USA, France, and Denmark. The best known of his books are perhaps the three whodunits featuring Det. Chief Supt. Ben Spence. These are listed in two leading reference books on crime fiction: A Reader's Guide to the Classic British Mystery, by Susan Oleksiw; and Sleuths, Sidekicks and Stooges by Joseph Green and Jim Finch. Reviewers have described Michael Allen as ‘a true blue murder master' (Michael Demarest in Time) and ‘in the top ten of crime writers' (Ted Willis in The Bookseller).

Michael has also worked in all the other major media. His comedy-thriller Spykiller won the Bouchercon 1990 competition for a stage play with a theme based on crime; the judges included Sir Donald Sinden and Hugh Whitemore. Michael's television adaptation of Conan Doyle's The Speckled Band was filmed in Warsaw, in 1979, by American producer/director Sheldon Reynolds; and Michael's radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC and by other organisations in six countries.