David Webb Series by Anthea Fraser
David Webb #12
The Seven Stars
Anthea Fraser
After fog forces her to spend the night in a country guesthouse called The Seven Stars, Helen Campbell reads her horoscope in the local paper. Little does she realise that by doing so she will dramatically change not only her own life, but the lives of everyone else living in the village. Ten days later, she returns to stay at The Seven Stars while attending a local course on antiques. Slow she finds herself increasingly involved in the lives of the people living there. As she arrived a girl was killed in a hit-and-run accident. But was it an accident? Or was it murder? A spate of robberies have targeted local country houses. Are they connected to the girl’s death? And what is the significance of the phrase which recurs in the horoscope column under ‘Tomorrow’s Birthday’? Whether or not it was written in the stars, Helen's stay at the guesthouse ensures that life will never be the same again... for any of them. ‘The Seven Stars’ is a gripping crime novel featuring Anthea Fraser's popular detective David Webb. Praise for Anthea Fraser: “A superbly crafted, riveting, page-turner of a read" Booklist “Ms Fraser is her dependable elegant, guileful self withholding the killer's identity till a dying fall" Sunday Times ANTHEA FRASER has written all her life but did not begin to take it seriously until after marriage, when she found herself at home with two small daughters and embarked on a correspondence course with the London School of Journalism. She wrote short stories before turning to novels of the supernatural, and then to crime. The Seven Stars is her twelfth crime novel. Praise for Anthea Fraser's books. 'A well-mannered, well-plotted and well-told story' Birmingham Post 'The book is a pleasure to read and savour' Woman Journalist 'Irresistible, all-too-human story' Dread Review of Mystery 'A well-structured book, with good balance between depiction of character and development of plot' Criminologist 'Sympathetic, well-executed book, in which full attention is paid to human feelings and failings' Yorkshire Post Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.From Kirkus ReviewsHelen Campbell's marriage to Andrew, an insurance claims adjuster is in trouble. Their two children are grown, and a restless Helen is thinking of renewing her old career in the antiques trade. Driving home one night from a visit to daughter Penelope, a university student, Helen is delayed by heavy fog and thankfully takes a room at The Seven Stars, a B&B along the way. As she's parking her car, a young woman runs out of the inn's doorway. Her body is found later that night--victim of a hit and run. Meanwhile, Chief Inspector David Webb of the nearby Shillingham police (The Gospel Makers, 1996, etc.) is trying to dredge up information from a botched attempt to break into Beckworth House- -one of a series of robberies of stately homes across the county, all of them marked by the theft of one or only a few not-always- valuable objects. Some days later Helen returns to Steeple Bayliss to take a two-week course on antiques, staying again at The Seven Stars, where, as on her first stay, she detects some odd cross- currents amongst owners Stella and Gordon Cain, Stella's sister Kate and brother-in-law Nicholas Warren; disquieting things, too, about their visitor Dominic Hardy--disturbing enough to drive Helen to the local police station, where, eventually, her total recall helps Webb solve a case in which the latest break-in has resulted in murder. Readable and fitfully intriguing, but undermined by too many coincidences, a clumsily absurd conspiracy, and an underlying motive literally not to be believed. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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