I think I intended to review this book at Christmastime, but somehow it got lost in the pile.
Death in Ambush is particularly enjoyable, because it is narrated by Lee Crauford with a particularly light touch. She has apparently been a major character in at least one other mystery by Gilruth at the start of this novel.
Lee’s friend Betty Sandys invites her and her husband Bob for Christmas, but Bob can’t leave work until Christmas Eve, so Lee goes on ahead. On her first evening at Staple Green, Lee meets several people at a cocktail party. They are Betty’s good friend Lady Metcalfe, Diana, whom everyone likes, and her much older husband Judge Metcalfe, whom everyone dislikes for his general rudeness and cruelty to Diana. There is Judge Metcalfe’s son Michael, who wants to be an actor against his father’s will, and his fiancée, Ann Quathough, who is an actress and has an unguarded and sometimes nasty tongue. Ann’s father Lewis Quathough, an eccentric art dealer, is there, as well as John Wickham, the Metcalfe’s agent, whom everyone knows adores Diana. Finally, Sonia Phillips, a new arrival in town and a quite glamorous woman, appears late and comes in through the surgery, as Howard Sandys is a doctor. There is a lot of wandering around that evening, and sure enough, Judge Metcalfe becomes ill of an apparent stroke and dies a few days later. But Howard has his doubts, and it turns out Metcalfe was poisoned with morphine, apparently at the party.
Soon Lee’s friend Detective-Inspector Hugh Gordon is on the case. Things begin looking bad for Diana even though everyone who knows her insists she couldn’t have done it.
I was fairly sure I knew who did, although I couldn’t puzzle out the alibi issue, and I was right. But I think it was more of an instinctual than reasoning guess, and once one character was ruled out, I knew I was right. But this is a mystery with a really light touch and mostly likeable characters. I enjoyed it very much. Interestingly, Lee’s husband Bob doesn’t even appear in the book, and there are some hints that the detective is in love with her. I would quite like to see where this goes, if anywhere, but I understand that Gilruth’s books are hard to find. And indeed, Abebooks only has this edition.
What? Me Read? 