Embarrassment of Corpses, An: An Oliver Swithin Mystery

By Alan Beechey

Scotland Yard is hunting the worst kind of serial killer—one with a sense of humor.

When children's book author Oliver Swithin, reluctant creator of the notorious "Finsbury the Ferret," finds an old friend's body floating in a Trafalgar Square fountain, he can't convince the police to treat the death as a murder.
But then more corpses turn up daily­­—on a tube station platform, in a botanical gardens hothouse, even in the middle of Piccadilly Circus—each murdered in an increasingly bizarre manner. It seems that a serial killer is at play, using London's landscape as his game board.
Oliver joins his uncle, Detective Superintendent Tim Mallard, in a race to uncover the pattern behind the growing number of deaths. But even if they solve the murderer's puzzle, will it help them identify the next victim before the killer strikes again? And will Oliver ever reveal his secret passion for Mallard's assistant, the forbidding Detective Sergeant Effie Strongitharm?
And what does any of this have to do with a battery-operated ferret, the works of Lewis Carroll, the great London Scorpion Scare, the episode of the nude Macbeth, and Underwood Tooth, the world's leading expert on being ignored?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Release date: May 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781615954827

Alan Beechey

Alan Beechey was born in England and grew up in London. He moved to Manhattan in his twenties and now lives with his three sons and his rescue mutt, Leila, in Rye, New York. This Private Plot is the third title featuring children's book author and amateur sleuth Oliver Swithin and his girlfriend, Scotland Yard detective Effie Strongitharm. They first met in An Embarrassment of Corpses, which The Bookshop Blog included in its list of the "Best 100 Mysteries of All Time," and reappeared in Murdering Ministers. Alan is also the co-author of a non-fiction book on American culture and values.

Reviews for Embarrassment of Corpses, An

[condorena · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Oliver Swithin is a children's author who writes about a fiendish ferret of a wandering nature while he whiles away his time at a do nothing job. After finding a friend dead in a fountain at Trafalgar Square he is first arrested and then asked by his uncle who is a Detective Chief Inspector to help solve a series of crimes that at first seemly are just accidents.

It appears that as more bodies are found patterns appear, one if which that the corpses are either marked or have a note set by them related to the signs of the zodiac. There is a race to discover the culprit before there are twelve bodies at hand.

The story is very interesting, fast paced with excellent characters. The best part of it all is the humor which lifted my spirits. I highly recommend this book, the first is a too short series of two. I can't wait to find the next one.