Product Description

"You're a librarian, not a detective," Catherine Penny's daughter reminds her. But Catherine, suddenly single in her sixties, finds it easy to slip into sleuthing mode when she leaves behind New York City and a failed marriage for a lovely 17th century cottage in the idyllic English village of Far Wychwood.

But behind the town's quaint stone walls and lace-curtained windows lurk dark secrets and whispers of witchcraft. And when her crusty neighbor George Crocker dies in a tragic fire, Catherine alone suspects arson. Lacking hard evidence, the police pay little attention, and the villagers swear she must be mistaken. Catherine, however, is one feisty expatriate American who leaves no stone unturned when circumstances point to murder. She may not be Miss Marple--yet--but her ingenious knack for uncovering the truth is about to take Far Wychwood by storm!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #179077 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
A delightful mystery....Catherine reminds me of Christie's Miss Marple with an American twist. Inviting, intimate, intriguing...quite simply fun. -- Old Book Barn Gazette

About the Author
Patricia Harwin is a librarian, like her heroine Catherine Penny. She lives in Rockville, Maryland, with her husband. Arson And Old Lace is her first novel, and she's hard at work on the next Far Wychwood mystery.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One

I pulled the car in close to the hedgerow and turned the key, and that amazing silence came down. It was the silence I had been wanting for more than a year, since my husband had left me, since I'd decided my only hope of peace lay in the ancient rhythms of an English village.

I used to wake in our apartment on West Eighty-third and listen for that silence through Manhattan's background hum. Keeping by long habit to my side of the bed, I would see behind closed eyelids the narrow country road and the old cottages with roses in bloom on their walls, as they had been when Quin and I had first come to Far Wychwood.

The village inn had been more affordable than an Oxford hotel when we'd come over to attend the wedding of our daughter, Emily, in Christ Church Cathedral, and we'd loved it so much, we had stayed there again when our grandson was born. The memory had become a refuge after Quin told me he'd fallen in love with another woman, and then through the hard labor of adjusting to life alone.

I closed my eyes and sank into the silence. When I opened them I saw my new home, standing where it had stood since the seventeenth century. Built of honey-colored Cotswold stone, its slate roof thick with velvety lichen, its windows mullioned and diamond-paned, a trail of brown vine by the door with the ghosts of last summer's roses clinging -- it looked like a Travel Britain poster, and it even had a name, in the English way: "Rowan Cottage."

I had been right to give the realtor an order for "a nice little furnished place in Far Wychwood" and leave the rest to her. She knew the kind of thing we Yanks were looking for.

I stepped out of the little car I had rented that afternoon at Heathrow, on a surge of relief at having made it all the way to Gloucestershire on the wrong side of the road without killing myself or anyone else. It would have been more sensible to have spent the night in London, as Emily had urged me to, but I couldn't wait to see my new home.

I pulled my suitcase and carry-on from the trunk. I had given everything to my friends in New York except a modicum of clothing, and the books, CDs, and photo albums I'd shipped. The rest belonged to the three quarters of my life Quin had shared, and I never wanted to see it again. I looked forward to leisurely days browsing county markets and antique shops for the furnishings of my new, solitary life.

But as I opened the gate and started up the worn brick path, the first pang of doubt struck. Could I be turning into a crazy old lady already, in just the first year of my sixties? It was kind of crazy to leave a circle of friends, a long career as a librarian, a whole country behind on the strength of a memory. After thirty years in Manhattan, could I be happy out here in the sticks? Wasn't I liable to go crazy from boredom?

The great adventure I'd been having began to feel like one more example of "going off half-cocked," as Quin called it, that impetuous nature he and Emily found so trying. But I realized I was veering perilously close to self-pity. This mood had to be the result of a drop in endorphin levels from two days without a good long walk, I told myself firmly.

My English realtor, a woman named Eleanor Coleman, had sent me a key. When I opened the door and stepped into the narrow hallway, the musty smell of a long-closed house rose around me. I flipped a wall switch and an overhead light came on. Thoughtful Eleanor Coleman! She'd had the electricity turned on.

I stepped into the room on my right and pushed another light switch. I was in a cozy little sitting-room with bare, random-width floorboards. A sofa covered in classic chintz and a green baize wing-chair flanked a fireplace. The far wall was ridged with empty bookcases from floor to ceiling.

The kitchen, across the hall, was the real English article, with stone-flagged floor, wooden dish rack over the sink, and glass-fronted cabinets. The only appliances were a rather elderly refrigerator and a huge Aga stove that took up most of one wall. I opened a door beside it and started up a steep, boxed-in staircase.

The second floor was tucked under the eaves, the ceilings low and slanted. There was an adequate, old-fashioned bathroom and two bedrooms freshly painted in a nice pale peach color, with good firm beds. The leaded casements of the larger room overlooked the back yard, its bare trees and bushes soft-edged in the twilight. The other bedroom looked out on the road and somebody else's cottage across the way, with one lighted window.

I leaned on the sill and looked out. Whoever lived in that little cottage was my only near neighbor. Woods and fields surrounded us, except for an abandoned building with a fallen-in thatched roof a few hundred yards down on my side of the road. We were apparently the last two occupied dwellings at this end of the village.

My second thoughts were multiplying into third and fourth ones. Everybody had said I was so brave when I'd told them my plans, but could it be that, under the surface bravado, I was really just one of those awful clinging mothers?

Emily had been a Rhodes scholar. As soon as she had finished her Oxford degree she had married her tutor. While I'd felt some regret that she would be staying in England, I'd had my chosen life and wanted her to have hers, too. She'd gone on to qualify as a psychotherapist and found a great job at an Oxford hospital. As it turned out, it was better that she was overseas during the breakup. It had hurt her enough at long distance.

That had all happened while she was still on maternity leave. Only after she went back to work had I begun to hear stress in her voice over the transatlantic wires. A succession of babysitters proved unsatisfactory, the hospital wanted her to take on more patients, little Archie came down with the usual baby ailments. She had sounded so delighted when I'd suggested coming over to live nearby and lend a hand. But how would she feel now that I was really here?

I flashed on her face, younger than her years, the blue eyes going cold behind her glasses. I remembered her voice, that patronizing tone she could assume so easily: "No, Mother, I don't think he needs a little cereal. That's an outmoded idea from your generation. The best authorities say milk is all a baby should have for the first six months, so please don't keep on about it."

That had been fourteen months ago, the last time I'd seen her. Quin, as always, had backed her up, and I had swallowed my opinions to keep the peace, hard though that always was for me.

Having burned all my bridges behind me, how would I now stand up to her when she gave me the Look, as sooner or later she would?

You will not go on worrying like this, I told myself sternly. I knew I was strong enough to forget the past and deal with whatever dilemmas the future would bring. It only required determination and will, and plenty of exercise. I ordered myself to think about something else -- that cottage across the road, for instance, about as old and picturesque as they come.

The little structure had spent centuries settling into its plot of ground, and now it leaned noticeably to one side. There were a couple of broken panes in one of the casements, which must make it pretty cold in there on a March evening like this. The window and door frames hadn't been painted for years, and the yard was such a tangle of weeds, I couldn't see a path. I wasn't going to find any new friends in that decrepit place, I thought glumly.

Then I noticed something grey and wispy, easing out under the door. I peered closer. Yes, it was smoke, seeping around the door, blowing through the missing windowpanes. As I watched it came faster and faster, and then the light went out.

I ran downstairs and across the road, and pounded on the door. There was no answer, but I could hear somebody blundering around in there, knocking things over.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Your house is on fire! Hello!"

There was still no response, so I turned the knob. The door swung in abruptly, and I was enveloped in smoke. Something black went whizzing past my feet and out the door. I didn't stop to see what it was, but plunged in, holding my breath.

The fire lit up the far wall. I could see the flames rising from a stove, reaching for the rafters. They had begun to consume a curtain above the stove, and a piece of the fabric was drifting to the stone floor, just missing a burlap sack that lay there.

As I came near the fire a shape loomed up beside me, tall and dim in the smoke. It stood there unmoving while I groped for the stove knob and twisted it. The fire died into the burner. I grabbed the curtain rod and jerked the burning curtain to the floor, leaned across to the sink to turn the faucet on full blast, let the water partially fill a battered tin pot, and upended it over the curtains. Then I did it again. The damp smoke gagged me, but the flames smoldered out.

I pressed a towel over my mouth and nose and went around opening casements. In a few minutes the smoke began to clear. Now I could make out that figure by the stove, a tall, thin man with a beard, bent over, coughing spasmodically. Why hadn't he made a move to help me?

As we both began to draw breath again, he spoke. "Annie?" he said in a high-pitched, quavering voice.

"No," I choked out with exasperation, "my name's not Annie!"

I grabbed his arm and pulled him out the door. We stood on the doorstep, dragging in air and looking each other up and down.

The moonlight showed me what a very old man he was. Gnarled bones stood out under the furrows of his face. His clouded eyes were sunk back in their sockets and his mouth caved in on toothless gums. His shirt was a mosaic of food stains, his fly was half unzipped, he wore a broken-down shoe on one foot but only a sock on the other. And he smelled. The odors of unwashed flesh and stale urine floated to me on the night breeze.

He was glaring at me indignantly. "You bain't Annie!" he growled.

"No," I said, much more gently, now I could see the old man must be senile. "My name's Catherine. However did that fire start?"

He glan...

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
I was surprised to find that I didn't enjoy this, because I'm usually pretty easy to please. I don't expect too much from cozy mysteries, and this is a typical cozy mystery. The problem, I think, is that I simply didn't like the characters. I found them all a little abrasive, not very happy, and just rather unpleasant. I just can't imagine spending any time with them in real life. That might be okay for some books, but a cozy mystery should be an escape, and this was one I didn't want to escape to. (Obviously, this must be a very personal thing as others seemed to have really enjoyed this book.)

Couldn't put it down
Loved this book, there were parts that made me laugh, easy read. Can't wait to read the next one in the series

Interest Take on Mystery
A pleasant approach to the mystery genre. The author has taken a flawed and vulnerable heroine and placed her in a charming and potentially hostile environment. Coupled with a very believable set of family conflicts, this is a fun book.