A Red Herring Without Mustard

In the English estate of Buxkhow live the last representatives of the de Luce family: an eccentric colonel and his three daughters. The colonel tries to protect the family from financial troubles by selling off stamp collections and family valuables. The older daughters, Ophelia and Daphne, entertain themselves by playing “the Inquisition” with their younger sister, but Flavia, the youngest, is occupied with an investigation.

The situation escalates when a Romani fortune-teller who has set up in the woods is attacked, and Flavia discovers a corpse—the body of Brooke Hairwood, a local scoundrel—hung on the trident of a fountain, clearly pointing to someone’s dark sense of humor and cynicism.

The case is assigned to Inspector Hewitt, who still underestimates the abilities of the young sleuth. However, it is precisely Flavia, with her persistence and curiosity, who will be able to unravel the chain of disappearances, deaths, and thefts occurring in quiet Bishops Lacey in recent years.