Beware of the Dog - (Virginia and Felix) by E X Ferrars (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

One inheritance plus two heirs adds up to murder in a Golden Age-style mystery that critics say is "reminiscent of Dame Agatha Christie."

Nice old Helen Lovelace has passed on to her just reward, so it's not surprising that her two young heirs have arrived to pick up the tasty inheritance that they expect to split. What is perhaps surprising is that their arrival is followed by another death: one of the heirs is murdered in her bed, and her cousin, Nicholas, looks a good bet for having pulled the trigger.

Mrs. Lovelace's housekeeper, however, has long had a soft spot for Nicholas, and she implores a neighbor--Virginia Freer, as it happens--to poke around and perhaps find another suspect. Virginia, happy to help, calls in her secret weapon: Her former husband, Felix, may be a bounder, a cad, a liar, and a thief, but he does have a knack for finding bad guys.

Review Quotes

"Ferrars dishes up a feast of suspects and red herrings...[she] establishes multiple layers of deception, drawing on all of them to fashion her deft solution" --Publishers Weekly


"A light, old-fashioned, drawing room mystery that is fun to read....Ferrars has a straightforward, breezy style, and she keeps the readers guessing until the final chapter....an impressive story" --South Florida Sun-Sentinel

"A tale with all the elements of the classic village murder mystery" --Press-Tribune

"Like Christie, Ferrars constructs masterly plots, with the same mix of the coincidental and the diabolic that life itself often serves up" --Chicago Tribune

"Reminiscent of Dame Agatha Christie....A critic long ago noted that Ferrars 'combines fine craftsmanship with skillful plotting and likeable characters to provide first-rate entertainment.' In Beware of the Dog, she's still at it." --Buffalo News