THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING

Lady Georgiana Rannoch has yet another murder to solve. This time she gets some help from Agatha Christie.

Georgie, cousin to King Edward VIII, and her husband, Darcy O’Mara, who does something secret for the Crown, are expecting their first child shortly. Despite their aristocratic connections, they’re not wealthy. Living at Eynsleigh, the Elizabethan house of Georgie’s godfather, they await the arrival of a French chef while surviving on the stodgy food cooked by Georgie’s former maid Queenie, a walking disaster. The long-awaited chef, Pierre, is handsome, and Queenie agrees to act as his assistant. Despite some misunderstandings over language and other matters, their first dinner party is such a smashing success that mystery author Sir Mordred Mortimer asks Georgie to let Pierre cook for a dinner to raise money for South African orphans. Mortimer seems a bit of a poseur, but his house and gardens, especially the poison garden, are a subject of considerable interest. The guests at his well-attended soiree include his children, along with some neighbors, some social climbers, an old school friend, and Laurence Olivier and Agatha Christie. The food is marvelous, and somehow all goes well even though Queenie and a dim maid serve as the only kitchen help. Luckily for her, Georgiana does not eat the dessert, a marvelous fruit tart that gives a number of the attendees food poisoning and leads the police to arrest Pierre for murder. Once Georgie sets out to prove the chef innocent, she is aided by Agatha Christie, who’s quite an expert on poisons.

A charming and often amusing mystery whose malefactor readers will quickly unmask.