Fall of a Philanderer (Daisy Dalrymple Series #14) » (Reprint)

In the summer of 1924, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher has planned a quiet, relaxing holiday in the small costal town of Westcombe. With her husband, Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard, planning to join them later, Daisy went ahead with her step-daughter Belinda and Belinda’s chum Deva. Currently three months pregnant, Daisy is looking forward to a relaxing, non-dramatic vacation of quiet strolls along the cliffs and days down at the beach. But Daisy doesn't have that kind of luck and the seemingly quiet seaside town turns out to be a small hotbed of rumor and scandal. It seems much of it is centered around local lothario George Enderby – the married owner of the local pub – who keeps himself busy attempting seduction of whatever women cross his path. And in a town this small, no indiscretion remains secret for very long.  Which is clearly illustrated when the husband of one of his rumored conquests assaults the innkeeper in full view.   
      The last vestige of the idyllic vacation dissipates shortly thereafter when the Fletchers, planning a simple picnic, discover Enderby’s broken body at the foot of a sea cliff.  With murder the most obvious conclusion, Alec’s vacation is cut short by the official investigation.  But it is up to Daisy to uncover the truth lurking behind the rumors, gossip, and closely held secrets of this small town if the killer is ever to be found.
 
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Author photo: yes (must attach)
Author Photo credit: Kent Peterson Photography
 
[Carola Dunn is the author of several previous mysteries featuring Daisy Dalrymple as well as numerous historical novels.  Born and raised in England, she lives in Eugene, Oregon. ]
 

 
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Publishers Weekly

When the delightful Daisy Fletcher, nee Dalrymple, and her husband, DCI Alec Fletcher, discover the corpse of a local innkeeper at the shore while on summer holiday, they realize their vacation will have to be given over to sleuthing. Who killed George Enderby? Was it the husband or father of one of the many women with whom he had an affair? Was it an enigmatic schoolteacher, also on vacation in Westcombe? The setting-English seaside, a town that begins with the letter "W" and ends in "-combe," in the years after the Great War-will draw inevitable comparisons to Dorothy Sayers's Have His Carcase (even the cover illustration recalls the iconic image of Harriet Vane in her flapper dress waltzing along the beach), but Dunn's 14th Daisy Dalrymple mystery is neither as witty nor as multilayered as Carcase. And a somewhat anticlimactic ending may leave readers a little dissatisfied. Agent, Alice Volpe at Northwest Literary Agency. (Sept.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.