The Mystery of Orchard House — Joan Coggin

On the eve of World War II, Lady Lupin Hastings, the young, totally scatterbrained but kindly wife to Andrew Hastings, the vicar of Glanville, is off for a bit of a rest cure at a country hotel in Kent, owned and run by her old friend Diana Turner, while she recovers from a bout of influenza. However, no sooner has she arrived when a series of petty thefts - and perhaps even an attempted murder?- requires that she assume her other persona: that of detective. In spite of her best efforts, theft follows theft, and the guests in the hotel all seem to take their eccentricities to new levels. The situation gets even worse when a guest’s car nearly crashes after the steering is deliberately tampered with. Is it attempted murder? And just who set fire to Orchard house? It could be any one of the guests, a very odd assortment who spend most of the time bickering among themselves. As usual, Lady Lupin gets everything wrong yet somehow stumbles to the truth as she runs the hotel in Diana's absence and tries to conceal her highborn origins from a socialist garage man she befriends. This is the third Joan Coggin book that Galileo has reissued. The first two: Who Killed the Curate and Dancing with Death have proved that the author has a substantial new following- all of whom will be very eager to read this totally entertaining mystery, first published in 1946.