Answer Came There None

In the small town of Edgeworth to ghostwrite the memoirs of a well-known general, journalist Sara Marriott receives a troubling message on her answering machine and, soon after, her landlady turns up dead

The prolific British author of Beware of the Dog , Trial by Fury et al. introduces a sympathetic heroine in her latest cozy thriller. Sara Marriott, a recently divorced young freelance writer, agrees to ghostwrite the autobiography of elderly Gen. Schofield. Moving to the small town of Edgewater, she rents a flat from the General's friend, the widowed Mrs. Cannon, and is immediately drawn into her landlady's quarrel with her middle-aged son who plans to marry and move to Canada. On her birthday Mrs. Cannon confides to Sara that she's about to change her will and leave her money to a niece, but while guests assemble for her party downstairs, she dies of poisoning in her bedroom. The police say the widow committed suicide, but the General disagrees. When he is killed next, Sara recalls an odd message found on her answering machine the day Mrs. Cannon died. Ferrars crafts the story well; her bringing a biology professor to Sara's aid makes for some tingling and informative sleuthing.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Newly divorced journalist Sara Marriot has come from London to the town of Edgewater, taking on the job of ghostwriting the memoirs of gentle, elderly General Schofield. He finds living quarters for her in an apartment in the home of his friend Althea Cannon, an 80-ish widow whose son, Oliver, teaches at the local Agricultural College and lives with her. The basement apartment is occupied by attractive teacher and aspiring author Paul Fryer. Meanwhile, Oliver is thinking of marrying Celia Hancock and moving to Canada--a plan that has moved his possessive mother to change her will, leaving a small fortune to niece Meg Kimberly, wife of farmer Ron, mother of twins Nick and Jill. But before that change can be executed, Althea is found dead in her bedroom--poisoned. Two more killings follow--acts of violence related in a kind of uninflected monotone, interspersed with endless cups of tea, sips of sherry, and the occasional lunch or dinner, as the major characters hash and rehash the various dull facets of the events around them. Bloodless stuff, strictly for Ferrars's devoted following (Danger from the Dead, etc.). -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.