Warner instead of Macdonald ( )

I was hoping for the kind of charismatic detective that Whimsy represents, but this book never quite got there. It is an interesting whodunit. It was unpredictable until nearly the end, but also fairly slow paced. A reasonable read for a rainy afternoon, but not a delight to my particular heart.

Advanced reader copy of reprint provided by Edelweiss. ( )

This is one of Lorac's few books where Inspector McDonald does not appear. It starts with quite an intriguing premise. Author A asks his publisher for a meeting to be arranged with author B, who has written a best-seller and is something of a mystery; he is then surprised to find that B is actually a young woman! Some time later the same woman approaches the police with a rather different story - she now claims that she was acting as a front for the real author, while working for him as his secretary. She reports that this man has vanished under sinister circumstances. The police's problem is that they can find no evidence that this man ever existed in the first place. Is she telling the truth, or is it all a hoax? The position is not entirely clarified when a body is found in a remote location in Worcestershire. The book ends with a chase leading down to the south coast and a surprising denouement. One of her best, in my opinion. ( )