Jemima Flowerday arrives at Merry Beggars (no apostrophe) Hall to design and make dresses for the elderly lady of the house. She's attracted not only to the money but to the fact that an unsolved murder occurred there the previous year and she's an enthusiastic reader of 'true detective stories'. She is not especially welcomed by the house staff especially when she starts digging into the murder. The French cook, Marie, dies unpleasantly in the first few hours, Will (gardener and chauffeur) is suspected, the butler (brother of the first murder victim), Jack tell-tale footman lusting after Dinah, housemaid, who is enamoured of Will all have something to hide. The family has it's own history with the loss of the eldest son in WW1, father dying just before and second son, pompous Sir Finchley and wife Lady Olivia Hamlash now in charge although Lady Hamlash Sn, mother, still runs the old house. Family secrets, cook who is not who she seems, revenge and blackmail all play their parts. More bodies. Good sense of time and place - 1922 London and 'county' and well described characters. Jemima does do a lot of detailed investigating and rather little dress making related matters which would not have gone down well with Lady Hamlash Sn I think. The police are sensible characters and do listen to Jemima, at times, even if she does rather a lot of snooping and entering well, illegally. The threads were all pulled together in a long but coherent fashion at the end but there was quite a lot of repetition of Jemima's earlier investigations. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy.