Fifteen Sixteen Maids In The Kitchen: A Grasshopper Lawns whodunit

by EJ Lamprey

  ‘Very prettily put,’ Edge said approvingly. ‘That should keep the family happy, and sort out any further Butler types. Oh no!’ Her eyes widened, and she started to laugh. ‘Oh no, how corny, I’ve just realized.’

  ‘Realized what?’

  Edge snorted with helpless laughter. ‘All those writers gathered together and not one of us picked up on it. The Butler did it!’

  Aftermath

  Robertson Manor is still in the process of renovation, but it isn’t, after all, going to the Heritage, who wanted most of the mechanical effects dismantled. William contacted SPELL, an international alliance of prestidigitators, illusionists and magicians, and offered to donate the house, along with the patents, on condition his uncle was acknowledged as a master of optical and mechanical effects. Two of the patents have already sold for a sum that will secure its future and keep Andrew Robertson in the SPELL hall of fame indefinitely.

  Jeanette Carr’s resemblance to the Kkkitty Catt photograph had been pointed out more than once by Facebook friends, who had teased her about her secret life. She’d even responded cryptically to one comment on Facebook just before joining the group, saying it had proved unexpectedly useful.

  Lorna Granger had left a smaller media footprint, but between what she had told Edge, the texts on her phone, and what Vivian could contribute, the police, with Iain’s expert prodding, managed to unravel the ‘Alec Burns’ deception. With a failing business and grim prospects, his only hope had been posing as an impoverished landowner in the hope of attracting a wealthy wife, until the possibility of intercepting the Robertson inheritance had come up. He knew the house fairly well from his visits to the old man, who had told him some of its secrets.

  No-one will ever know what Jeanette said to tip him from infatuation to violence but if she noticed his covert courtship of Vivian, she could have spitefully threatened to expose his alter ego and his designs on William’s inheritance, ending his career at the same time. With all the principal players dead, there was still enough to update, then close, the file.

  A bit more about the books, and some specials for mailing list subscribers

  If you enjoyed this Grasshopper Lawns book, please review it on Amazon, it is the best way a book can hope to grow a following and a review can be as short as twenty words. When you say what you liked about a book (and even what you didn’t) you are telling hundreds, even thousands, of other readers whether or not they should read it, and a positive review makes more of a difference to a writer than you might believe possible. Amazon will have a link at the end of this book, and will probably send you an email requesting feedback, or you can click in via the links detailed below.

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  One way to claim a book in return for your review is via my website: there’s a mailing list at the top of the sidebar, if you sign up you get an immediate free story from the series (currently a lead-in story for Eleven Twelve Dig And Delve), and I’ll keep you up to date with any special offers, freebies and promotions as they come up (you can unsubscribe at any time). Every new book, for instance, comes out at a special pre-launch price, which is only advertised on the mailing list and to followers of the series. The start of Three Four was revamped completely six months after its release, and I sent out a replacement to everyone on the list.

  The Quite Contrary website is definitely casual, about life, the universe, and the occasionally alarming learning curves involved in being both a writer and a mature single. (If you are reading this electronically, and use the link, it takes you to the Detective Club oath - click on Home to be taken to the most current blog.) Going on the mailing list puts us in email contact, or you can email me direct on elegsabifff@gmail.com - attach the link to your review, and tell me which book you want (details of all the books coming up) and I will email you the book by return. You then forward the email direct to your Kindle address (which you will find under your Settings) and Bob’s your uncle. (EPUB version also available, just specify.)

  I’m also on Facebook, with a page for every name I write under, and on Twitter, as on the blog, I’m Elegsabiff.

  All the books are available on Kindle and are slowly going into paperback on Amazon. Searching the name EJ Lamprey will always take you to the latest list. There is an omnibus for the first three books. A second omnibus is looming.

  In One Two Buckle My Shoe, the murder of an unpopular resident sparks off an investigation. The police could use some inside information— fortunately, Sergeant Kirsty Campbell’s slightly eccentric aunt is right on the spot. The investigation really starts picking up speed when Edge and Vivian make friends with bon vivant William and the sardonic new resident Donald. It wasn’t that the friends set out to solve it themselves. They are keenly interested, of course—and they do keep coming across clues that no-one is giving to the police. . .

  In Three Four Knock On My Door, it is Sylvia’s handsome devoted nephew Simon, and the enigmatic Dallas from Louisiana, with life-changing news for Vivian, who come knocking. The amateur sleuths of the retirement village combine to solve murder in between unexpected family, winter picnics, a new resident dog causing havoc at the Lawns, and Death paying a visit. In person.

  In Five Six Pick Up Sticks, website dating for the over-fifties is definitely a boom industry, but for some it has been a dead end, and the Scottish police want to know why. The third whodunit in the Grasshopper Lawns series dives gleefully into the murkiest end of the senior singles dating pool (where the predators lurk) with Edge secretly hoping to meet someone special. It’s spring, and it seems the rest of the world is in love, is there someone out there for her? Preferably not the murderer, of course.

  In Seven Eight Play It Straight Edge’s actress stepdaughter is performing in a successful Fringe show during the Edinburgh Festival, which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors and is always a busy family time at Grasshopper Lawns. Long-standing hostilities are set aside when a violent and bloody killing strikes all too close to home, but the temporary truce doesn’t last after Fiona accuses Edge of the murder.

  In Nine Ten Begin Again there are, unsurprisingly, murky goings-on at the Grasshopper Lawns retirement village, but for once they’re not getting the attention they deserve. Between Edge, to her own astonishment, falling head over heels in love, and Vivian terrifying her friends by nearly dying of pneumonia, they’ve definitely taken their eyes off the ball. Can they settle down and get on with the job in hand in time? Well of course they can, they’re old hands at this by now. But it’s a close-run thing.

  Eleven Twelve Dig And Delve (the Halloween edition) is a cross-genre mystery which has had both delighted and horrified reviews. There’s a newcomer at the Grasshopper Lawns retirement village, and she’s an absolute battle-axe. One requirement of residency is to have an interesting past and Beulah Quinn’s past has been interesting to the point of scandalous. Now nearly eighty, she was notorious for her lovers and her political machinations and has been described variously as the most beautiful woman of her day, a widow-maker, and a full-blown witch. Now, though, someone is trying to kill her; and family is family. To Edge’s horror, her aunt is moving in.

  Thirteen Fourteen Maids A-Courting It’s off to the Canaries for the amateur sleuths this time, because Drew, who took Edge’s lovely niece Kirsty there to propose to her, has vanished instead. However, matters become even more complicated when they come to the rescue. In fact, downright sinister. Was Drew the real target, or just the bait?

  Joanna and Clarissa

  In the unlikely event you, as a whodunit reader, also enjoy SF (maybe not that unlikely—I enjoy both, after all) I also write as Joanna Lamprey in that genre. The books are a separate name because the styles couldn’t be less similar. Although Sydni, in Place, would probably get on very well with the Grasshopper Lawns bunch. Abby and Kirsty would certainly like each other. Lucy, fr
om Time, on the other hand . . .

  Time After Time is a collection of microstories, shorts, and a novella about travelling to Neanderthal times. Lucy is the only major character I dislike, but she demanded creation and no-one says no to Lucy.

  No Place Like Place, Book One is the first book in a planned series of three, set on a colonised planet with, however, a decidedly retro lifestyle. There’s steam. And, of course, eccentric characters.

  And for something completely different: as any reader of my blog will know, writing Five Six Pick Up Sticks got me researching singles websites for mature singles, and Nine Ten Begin Again got me really involved. I wrote a book loosely based on the stories I heard, the shenanigans generally around a mature singles website, and my own experiences. The book is steamy enough, especially around the middle, to fog up the specs of some readers, and I wrote it under the name Clarissa Rodgers-Briskleigh to make clear it is a romp - funny, sad, sexy and an off-beat romance, all in one. It’s called A Second Rainbow.

  Kinloch Castle

  Robertson Manor was in small part inspired by Kinloch Castle, the spectacularly extravagant Edwardian shooting lodge on the island of Rum. The Great Hall was the inspiration for the cover, and the master suite is a pale copy of Lady Monica’s morning room, borrowing the Edwardian shower closet and the conservatory with, once, tropical finches.

  It was completed in 1900 and astonishingly modern for its time, built with its own electricity supply, modern plumbing, heating, and telephone system. No tricks and traps, but a mechanical orchestrion manufactured in Germany and destined for Queen Victoria, who died before it could be shipped, provides music in the Great Hall. It was, in its heyday, excessively grand - formal and informal gardens, including a water garden, Japanese garden, bowling green and golf course, were laid out by 1912, and a walled garden with glasshouses briefly housed alligators.

  It isn’t a place you accidentally stumble on, unless you find yourself at a loose end in the Inner Hebrides, are in Mallaig’s ferry port, and wondering which of the Small Isles near Skye (Eigg, Muck, Rùm or Canna) you should visit. It is, however, worth going out of your way to visit. In my case there was a family link to the architects (Joseph and John Leeming), and soon after I moved to Scotland my daughter and I made the trek. I hadn’t realized how powerful an impression it had made until I came to writing a grandiose shooting lodge of my own a decade later, and couldn’t resist borrowing from the best.

  The castle has been owned by Scottish Natural Heritage since 1957 and is open to the public for tours, to help fund ongoing maintenance and restoration. If reading electronically, click on these links for the Isle of Rum Heritage, and the Kinloch Castle Friends Association for more, and much better, photographs and information.

  Glossary

  Bampot – lunatic

  Bawbag – scrotum (and pungent slang)

  Birl – to twist or twirl around

  Blether – to have a talk, chatter, gossip.

  Chap – knock (as in knock on the door)

  Cludgie – lavatory

  Crabbit – bad tempered, crabby

  Dinna fash – don’t worry (can also be spelled and pronounced dinnae fash)

  Dinnae, and cannae, words ending ae, are pronounced dinny, and canny

  Dram – a tot (usually of whisky)

  Girn, girning – complaining

  Greet – cry, weep (Bubble is another word for the same)

  Ken – means variously know, I know, do you know. It’s one of the most versatile Scots words

  Scunnered – shocked

  Swithering – similar to dithering, to be unable to decide

  Taken the huff – offended.

  About the author

  Elizabeth (E J ) Lamprey lives on the Firth of Forth, within easy distance of Edinburgh, and only a few miles from where Grasshopper Lawns would be if there was a Grasshopper Lawns retirement village.

  Originally from South Africa, she’s the daughter of a Scot, looks like a Scot, dearly loves Scotland, but accepts that with a mere fourteen years residence she is still considered a tourist, albeit a tenacious one.

  She has been variously a book reviewer on a city paper, a columnist in a national magazine, a copy-editor and critiquer, a commercial blogger, and a reporter on a country newspaper, as well as earning an actual living with more conventional jobs.

  She’s looking forward to becoming a grandmother when her busy daughter can find the time, but until then writing a series of cheerful whodunits about a Scottish retirement village is definitely her favourite occupation.