As a baby, Clayton was left on the front steps of a retirement home. He grew up among the Fellowship for Puzzlemakers, a group of enigmatologists, codebreakers, and crossword setters who share a reclaimed country estate. Now he has to uncover his origin to secure his future, and that of the Fellowship.
Mark Cecil has deftly reframed the hallowed figures of Paul Bunyan and John Henry in this book. The legendary men are forced to go toe to toe with the capitalistic greed of an expanding America. They remain heroes in this retelling but their foes now include amorphous ideals as well as bad guys.
Lorac is the pen name of Edith Caroline Rivett who wrote dozens of novels from the 1930s – 1950s. Death of an Author pulls from her inside publishing knowledge to set up this snappy mystery novel.
On a rainy, late Victorian evening in London, a group of men sit in their club, bemoaning the fact that a bill they oppose will pass in Parliament that night. Then, they notice Sir Andrew, the bill’s main supporter, is across the room and they hatch a Scheherazade plan to distract him until the vote is over.
Deep family secrets create a domino effect no one could have predicted — except maybe a fortune teller at an English country fair.