With some trepidation Nigel Derry approaches the country house of his enigmatic and unpredictable aunt Gwenny for an Easter holiday visit. After a tense few days in which her guests’ interactions range from awkward dinners to a knife fight, a disgruntled aunt Gwenny departs for Europe. Receiving a telegram from Le Touquet inviting him to join Gwenny in the south of France, Nigel finds himself on a vacation cut short by murder as a cold shadow of suspicion eclipses the sunny beauty of the Côte d’Azur. Enter Inspector Blampignon of the Sûreté Nationale, whose problems abound as the case suggests that the crime may have occurred hundreds of miles away from where the victim was discovered. Undeterred, the formidable French detective embarks on a thrilling race to discover the truth in this rare and spirited mystery novel, first published in 1956.

Dr John Maddox fully deserved the vacation he had promised himself on the Riviera. But from the moment Julia Knight, with whom he was in love, unexpectedly joined him at a cafe table in Monte Carlo, his carefree mood was shattered. After calling in Inspector Blamignon of te Surete Nationle, he and Julia were caught up in a sequence of mysterious happenings that took them back to England and then across the Channel again to Avignon and Paris. Why had Julia's husband disappeared fr the villa where he worked as secretary to a famous novellist? What was the secret of the lonely farmhouse in the mountains behind the Cote d'Azur? And who planned the murder that brought Superintendant Meredith hurrying to a Sussex village? These are some of the questions that will keep you guessing to the last page of John Bude's ingenious new Anglo-French mystery novel.