I enjoyed the mystery and its solving. The narration was mostly good, but some of the voice characterisations seemed off, to me... too ?robotic?tinny? perhaps going for brusque and snappy as they were given to military sorts, but the pitch was too high and sharp to be quite right for the character--to my ear. ( )

hey found Sampson Warrenby slumped in a chair. He was very dead. Someone had put a bullet through his head. The violence of Sampson's passing shocked the village - but there was no shortage of suspects. Ten people had hated him. One had turned to murder...
It was a hot June evening in the village of Thornden, the Hasells celebrate a tennis party at the Cedars, their mansion. The young Haswell had just motored the lovely Abby Dearham back from social event of the week. Nearly everyone of the village uppercrust had come to the party--the Squire, the Vicar, the sharp-tongued heir to five centuries of local real estate. But the unpopular solicitor Sampson Warrenby had declined, and no one was sorry. Why this charmless social-climber was invited was beyond Abby. Had he some sinister hold on the social leaders of Thornden? All joking was cut short when a wild-eyed girl came running down the lane. For it was Mavis, Warrenby's niece, announcing he was dead.

Slumped on a seat under an oak tree is old Sampson Warrenby, with a bullet through his brain. When the upstart solicitor is killed and everyone -- who at one time or another wanted him out of the way -- feels panic stricken. His body is discovered by his anxious niece, who is just one of ten people in the village in the running for chief suspect, having cause to dislike Warrenby intensely. Everybody in the village is ready to tell Chief Inspector Hemingway who did it. Could the murderer have been the dead man's niece? Or perhaps it was the other town solicitor? The couple at the farm had a guilty secret-what was it? And why is it someone else actually wants to be the prime suspect? Add to this the fact that Warrenby was blackmailing someone. Only Hemingway can uncover which of the ten has turned hatred into murder, but has his work cut out for him. ( )

Chief Inspector Hemingway of Scotland Yard is called in to the elite village of Thornden when Sampson Warrenby, a lawyer and newcomer to the village, is murdered in his own garden. The trouble is that there are simply too many suspects, almost all of them without an alibi for the relevant time: there’s rival lawyer Thaddeus Drybeck upon whose clientele Warrenby had been poaching; there’s Mrs. Midgeholme, who breeds pekingese dogs, one of which the deceased had recently kicked; there’s Mavis, the murdered man’s niece and heir; there are the Lindales, who seem terribly secretive; there’s Gavin Plenmeller, a crippled young man who doesn’t seem to have anything against Warrenby in particular but who likes to maliciously insult people in general; and many more! Hemingway certainly has his work cut out for him here…. This is the fourth and final “country home” murder series featuring Hemingway, published in 1953 and featuring Ms. Heyer’s usual well-drawn cast of characters, particularly Hemingway himself, who is very sharp, quite funny at times and constantly referring to himself as having “flair,” whatever that means! One need not have read the other books in the series, as only Hemingway and his assistant carry on from one book to the next, and each book works quite well as a stand-alone. Amusing and light; recommended, especially as summer reading! ( )

A tennis party, a disreuptable attorney, and a small town with too many secrets are the backdrop for this mystery. Add to all that an impish mystery author and Detective Hemingway has alot to deal with. Still he proves himself worthy of the task in this fun mystery. Heyer has such fun with her language that she makes the plot a bit fuzzy and I would have appherated a map of the town, but I still found this a fun read. ( )

This one took some getting into. It dragged a whole lot and there wasn't ever much development of the characters. Got a little more exciting in the end, but not one of Heyer's best. ( )