Morna Doris MacTaggart was born in Burma in 1907 and sent at the age of six to a prestigious boarding school in England. After an early marriage and the publication of two novels, in 1940 her life was turned upside-down when she both met Robert Brown and published Give a Corpse a Bad Name (as E.X. Ferrars), her first mystery and the first in what would become the five-book "Toby Dyke" series. She and Brown married in 1945 and in 1951 moved to the US, though they returned to the UK only a year later, sickened by America's turn toward McCarthyism. In 1953 Ferrars helped found the Crime Writers' Association. The couple lived in Edinburgh for 25 years, during which Ferrars wrote more than 35 crime novels, finally returning to series mystery—irst with the "Virginia and Alex Freer" books and then with "Andrew Basnett"—n the late 1970s, after a move to Oxfordshire. She died in 1995, having published more than 75 novels and numerous short stories, nearly all of them involving dead bodies.

A retired professor spends Christmas in a not-so-peaceful English village in this wryly witty mystery with “a surprising and satisfying conclusion” (Publishers Weekly).   Andrew Basnett does not have very good luck with Christmas. Most recently, while visiting friends in Australia for the festive season, he wound up with a front-row seat to some rather extraordinary family strife. And this time around, his plans for a peaceful English-village holiday get blown up when. . . . well, when his hosts’ neighbor, Sir Lucas Dearden, gets blown up.    This is England in the 1980s; everyone shudders, blames the IRA, and moves on. Except, of course, for Andrew Basnett. Who knew, he wonders, about Sir Lucas’s last-minute change of plans? Why had Sir Lucas meticulously removed one page of the (rather stunningly dull) memoir he was writing? And could the bomb possibly have been intended for someone else?   “Ferrars has published more than sixty books and the craftsmanship of this one shows why her popularity endures.” —Publishers Weekly   “There are few detective-story writers so consistently good.” —Sunday Times

A retired professor spends Christmas in a not-so-peaceful English village in this wryly witty mystery with “a surprising and satisfying conclusion” (Publishers Weekly).   Andrew Basnett does not have very good luck with Christmas. Most recently, while visiting friends in Australia for the festive season, he wound up with a front-row seat to some rather extraordinary family strife. And this time around, his plans for a peaceful English-village holiday get blown up when. . . . well, when his hosts’ neighbor, Sir Lucas Dearden, gets blown up.    This is England in the 1980s; everyone shudders, blames the IRA, and moves on. Except, of course, for Andrew Basnett. Who knew, he wonders, about Sir Lucas’s last-minute change of plans? Why had Sir Lucas meticulously removed one page of the (rather stunningly dull) memoir he was writing? And could the bomb possibly have been intended for someone else?   “Ferrars has published more than sixty books and the craftsmanship of this one shows why her popularity endures.” —Publishers Weekly   “There are few detective-story writers so consistently good.” —Sunday Times

Andrew Basnett does not have very good luck with Christmas. Most recently, visiting friends in Australia for the festive season, he wound up with a front-row seat to some rather extraordinary family strife. And this time around, his plans for a peaceful, English-village holiday get blown up when...well, when his hosts' neighbor, Sir Lucas Dearden, gets blown up. A bomb, you know. This is England, it's the 1980s: everyone shudders, blames the IRA, and moves on. Except, of course, for Andrew Basnett. Who knew, he wonders, about Sir Lucas's last-minute change of plans? Why had Sir Lucas meticulously removed one page of the (rather stunningly dull) memoir he was writing? And could the bomb possibly have been intended for someone else?