Murder at Tregowyn Manor: A Golden Age Mystery

Vandagriff’s entertaining third whodunit featuring Catherine Tregowyn (after Murder in the Jazz Band) centers on the theft of a valuable artifact. In 1935, Sonny Nichols, an Oxford University undergrad, joins an archaeological team excavating Anglo-Saxon artifacts in Cornwall, coincidentally on land belonging to the Tregowyn family. The group finds a valuable carved Roman brick, which is later stored in a locked basement vault in Balliol College under Sonny’s care. Despite those precautions, the brick disappears, and Sonny is the prime suspect. Catherine, a gifted amateur sleuth in her first year as a tutor at Oxford, agrees to assist in the investigation, and returns home to Cornwall, where the case takes a dark turn after a man goes missing and is presumed murdered. Vandagriff makes familiar tropes feel fresh, and in Catherine has created an appealing lead capable of sustaining a lengthy series. Fans of golden age mysteries will look forward to more. (Self-published)