Bruce Attleton is a once-successful novelist married to the actress Sybilla Attleton. He has planned to meet up with his friend Neil Rockingham in Paris, but he doesn’t show up. When Rockingham finds that no one knows where Attleton is, he thinks of going to the police.
In the meantime, Robert Grenville, a journalist who wants to marry Attleton’s ward, Elizabeth Leigh, learns that a strange man with a beard named DeBrett might be blackmailing Attleton. He traces DeBrett to a weird studio with a tower, breaks in, and finds Attleton’s briefcase in the coal cellar.
Grenville goes to the police, and eventually they find a body plastered into what had been a niche in the wall. But the body has no head or hands, so is it Attleton or DeBrett, since both seem to be missing?
There’s no love lost between the Attletons, and both were unfaithful, so is that a motive for murder? Or has Attleton faked his own death? Did Grenville kill him since he was denying permission for him to marry Elizabeth? Or does it have something to do with his cousin, who recently died?
If this doesn’t sound complicated enough, the mystery gets more so as it continues. I guessed the motive, but the murderer was just one of many guesses.
I think I like Lorac’s rural mysteries better because of their atmosphere, although the studio is certainly creepy. Of course, Inspector Macdonald is going to solve the crime.
What? Me Read? 
I enjoyed this one, but did find the setting particularly creepy!
Yes, it was.
I haven’t read much by Lorac, but do have a copy of this one. I’ll look forward to it!
This was my first Lorac and I loved the Gothic touches about the house. It feels different to the other books of hers that I’ve read since, though – more old-fashioned, maybe. I seem to remember the dialogue sounding a bit like Wodehouse.
Hmm, I didn’t notice that. She has several set in the downs that have great descriptions and feeling of setting.