Just Add Nauseum, Death at the Dinner Party

This intriguing work of fiction is currently seeking a publisher.

If interested, please contact the author or her North American literary agent Pat Poland, Writers' Ink/Media, 514 Northwood Dr, Conroe, TX 77303 USA. Phone +1 936-499-4625, email patpoland@yahoo.com.

The story unfolds thus

‘Bring my killer to justice!’ With these words, Caterina Hungerford of Hornbeam Hall bursts into the study of an old country home in present-day Tasmania and shatters the hard-won peace and quiet with which bachelor and amateur detective Quaminus Frye surrounds himself. He’d rather be preparing a presentation to the Royal Society and indulging his secret vices: harbouring asylum seekers and continuing his love affair with his sister-in-law.

 ‘Bring my killer to justice!’ These words lead Quaminus, who uses handwriting analysis to solve crimes, to a weekend house party at the Hungerford estate. The guests risk having their lives ruined if Caterina lets fly at Saturday’s blue-food dinner party. Let fly she does and die she does, slumping gracefully and lifelessly to the floor before the dessert course. Quaminus must determine whether it was murder, an accident or suicide by allergy. Did poison lurk in the Turquack? Was something lethal injected into the Lavender Mash? As he sorts through the suspects, Quaminus encounters painful truths about old friends and about himself better left undisturbed.

The unusual suspects: Bolla Lester-Norman, flamboyant widow of distant Hungerford relative Brigadier Clive, never travels anywhere without her stuffed giraffe and Toblerone chocolate. Caterina’s tight-lipped tennis-playing sister-in-law, Anthea Hungerford Fitzadam, would do anything to protect the family name. Guy, her property developer husband of questionable antecedents, had an exuberant youth.

Ornamentalist Meredith Eastmeadowson, Caterina’s childhood friend, elbows desperately at the guilty ties that bind. Her paleoclimatologist husband Roddy calls himself a ‘scientist with balls.’ Ted, Caterina’s farmer husband, has a chat-room alter-ego as Mr Diddy P.

Who put the deadly fava-bean flower in the centrepiece?

All suspects have the opportunity to insert a stalk of fava-bean flower into the centrepiece on the table at Saturday’s dinner. All know about Caterina’s G6PD deficiency, which means that the slightest inhalation or ingestion of fava beans or pollen is enough to cause instant death. Enter Dwayne Luke, an ambitious firewood feral turned computer whiz who hacks into Caterina’s computer to find the information Quaminus needs to crack the case. Can he trust this untested ex-convict, who has designs upon Caterina’s daughter? Quaminus traverses scenic Tasmania to ‘Bring my killer to justice.’ He grills a brace of supporting characters, from an old druggie to an egotistical pastry chef. The secrets Caterina knew provide motives a-plenty for her murder, including prostitution, poisoning and an old will never found.

Quaminus confronts the suspects at Hornbeam Hall after Caterina’s memorial service. All are guilty in some way, but one ultimate culprit ‘done’ it. Quaminus emerges victorious from a last battle with his conscience when he decides to tell Detective Sergeant Boyle a version of the truth (and there are so many) that will allow them both to sleep at night, thereby ensuring that justice is served.