One dead body. Multiple identities. Can an amateur sleuth see through the charade before she becomes a tragic victim?
Young military widow, Dotty Sayers, is delighted with her new job at an auction house in Britain’s picturesque Cotswolds. She reluctantly agrees to take part in a Remembrance parade, to commemorate her husband and his fallen comrades, but she’s shocked to learn that after the event an unknown soldier is found dead.
Dotty assists the police and appraises objects found at the victim’s house, but rather than identifying the deceased, she discovers numerous personas. When a suspect is arrested, and Dotty is asked to look after his British blue cat, she realises appearances can be deceiving. Can she track down the real culprit and prevent an innocent man from being imprisoned?
Can Dotty unmask the killer without putting her own life at risk?
Fake Death is the first book in the captivating Dotty Sayers Antique Mystery series. If you like intriguing mysteries, entertaining characters and the glorious British countryside, then you’ll adore Victoria Tait’s enthralling tale.
Buy Fake Death and unmask a killer today!
Earl Grey’s View on Moving House
I’m not sure what the big deal is. I’ve heard humans moan – well, not many as my previous companion, the Duke, who kept to himself, a bit like me – about moving house, but I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.
I enjoyed being at Windrush Hall when the Duke was alive. He lived on his own, apart from me and Norman Climpson, who checked that we were both OK, bought our food, and cleaned and lit the fire. The Duke didn’t need the main house. It was too big for one man and a cat, and we were far more comfortable in our quarters in the converted kitchen and the old cook’s bedroom above it.
But this meant I had the run of the large house and there were plenty of mice to chase. Norman did his best to maintain the house and keep it dry, and I was responsible for keeping it vermin free. He did scold me when I dragged off the dust sheets or created a mess. I remember a particularly enjoyable chase with a tenacious fawn field mouse, which I admit I taunted terribly, when we pulled all the dust sheets off the furniture in one of the upstairs bedrooms.
I liked the old empty house best in the cold winter months when Norman hired huge space heaters to keep it dry and prevent the pipes from freezing. I had a favourite spot to curl up and soak in the heat, on an abandoned pillow under the velvet canopy of a huge fourposter bed.
Things changed after the Duke died. I first met Dotty when she and an older gentleman, with dark watchful eyes, visited Norman to discuss selling the contents of the hall. The Duke had no family, well none that I’d met, so they said everything was to be sold. That was a shock. Was I also to be put up for sale?
I’m a pedigree cat, don’t you know. A British blue. And with my wonderful grey fur, with its blue tint, I cost the Duke a lot of money. He used to joke I was worth more than Norman, a month of his time anyway.
I recognised immediately that Dotty was both kind and intelligent. She squatted down to my level so I could rub against her legs, and she complimented me. Clever girl. I knew she would be an ideal companion, but I heard Norman complain she didn’t want me. Didn’t want me! What was the matter with her?
Later, when we moved to the farm, I realised that, like me, she’d also lost her companion and was forced to leave her home. It didn’t take me long to settle into the farm cottage, and I have a great friend in Agatha, a black, wiry Berkshire piglet. There’s lots of room in the farmhouse kitchen to play tag and this amazing oven with its own pet name, Aga, which Agatha and I curl up against as it’s so warm. I’m tempted to jump onto it, but I’m worried I’ll burn my paws.
So moving wasn’t difficult, apart from when I was locked up in the police station with that rude Welsh police inspector, and Dotty, my companion and I are happy now.
About the Author:
I was born and raised in Yorkshire, UK, and never expected to travel the world. But I fell for an Army Officer, and I’ve followed him from Northern Ireland, up to the Scottish Highlands, across to Africa and the Kenyan Savannah, back to the British Cotswolds, and we are now living in Sarajevo, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Southern Europe.
I never expected to be an author, but all this moving is not ideal for holding down a job. Instead, I’ve taken the experiences of the places I’ve lived to write vivid and evocative cozy mystery books with determined female sleuths.
I have two fast-growing teenage boys, and together we’ve learnt to ski on the Bosnian mountains. I also enjoy horse riding, mountain biking and I’ve started running as a way to improve my physical fitness, mental wellbeing and shed some excess pounds.
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