Laura Deane and the Feathered Nest

Laura Deane, statuesque and passingly beautiful, had imagined her life would be altogether different at the age of thirty-six. Instead, washed up on the far side of the Second World War, she is living above a chemist with her elderly mother, Maeve, a string of lacklustre jobs, ranging from minor acting parts to modelling lingerie behind her.Falling back on her limited typing abilities, a secretarial position with Albert Coombe, a private inquiry agent, seems to offer more scope for her observational skills and insights into human behaviour. An opportunity to leave the typewriter behind and detect comes when Albert, out of his depth in a case beyond his usual ones of dockside theft and insurance claims, begs Laura to assist in a murder investigation. Leah Endelstein, an American woman with a mysterious and possibly criminal past, has drowned in the Mediterranean off Cyprus, and her stepdaughter, Rachel Endelstein, thinks it was homicide. The dead woman's propensity for blackmail and coercion has given her several enemies.The first step is opening the dead woman's red attaché case and securing its contents. However, the various items it contains seem to only muddy the waters further, and Laura is left feeling it is a red herring. Or is it?Believing that the clues to her death lie in the past, when the young Leah lived in Lincolnshire, Laura seeks out people who knew her then. Along the way, she meets a former maid, Ethel Clovis, who has staggering revelations about Leah's former life.A breakthrough comes with the discovery of an old hand-drawn Christmas card, with the verse 'Little birds agree, it's time to feather our own nests.' Laura speculates that the current deaths are linked to another in the 1920s.Things are made complex by the fact that few people involved believe a crime has taken place, and indeed some, such as Sir Stephen Taveley and Lady Vine, are antagonistic to any investigation of their stepsister's death. Yet these siblings, too, will be targeted, and one will die before the case is solved. Soon, Laura's own life will be in danger.Laura's mother, Aunt Ellen, and Ethel Clovis form a coterie of older women, and to Laura's surprise, their tea table discussions offer sage advice helpful to the investigation.Aided by her client, Rachel Endelstein, Laura strives to resolve a complex mystery with its roots in secrets concealed for three decades and to unmask a cunning killer who stages their crimes as accidents. However, as she delves into the backgrounds of her suspects, some are revealed as charlatans. Ultimately, almost everyone touched by the case will see their lives change, and those with old sins will find they cast long shadows. As Laura says, it is a slow dance with fate sometimes; you think you are leading, but find it's not the case.