Absent Friends

The First World War is over, despite victory England is struggling to come to terms with its aftermath and society can never be the same again. Another battle that has been won is by the suffragettes - women not only have the vote they can also stand for Parliament. Nell Bray, flushed with the success of their campaign, is now searching for someone or some party to support her stand for election. Out of the blue she is approached by the widow of a recently deceased Conservative M. P whose husband had been killed by a firework, however the widow is convinced he was murdered by a political opponent. When she offers to cover Nell's election expenses in exchange for her investigating his death, Nell is at first wary of taking the woman's money for a political end, but when she looks more closely at the circumstances of the ex-M. P's death she agrees. In between the hustings and pamphlet printing, Nell discovers more likely suspects than the man's erstwhile political foe, including someone who is trying to undermine her own campaign. As the votes are counted she unmasks the real killer in a most satisfactory denouement to a delightfully serpentine whodunnit.