It was a picture-postcard English village, but like all such villages, it had its share of secrets, scandals and tragedies. The Player murder, however, was seldom discussed: in fact, the whole unpleasant affair was as good as forgotten - or would have been if a visitor to the village hadn't fed the local rumour mill with the startling information that the rather mysterious woman known as Mrs Edwina Charles had, ten years earlier, been the notorious clairvoyant, Madame Adele Herrmann, implicated in a sensational, unsolved murder case. And then the gossip really began. What had happened to the fabulous diamond necklace that Edwina Charles was reputed to have made away with after that earlier crime? What was her exact relationship to the eccentric Cyril Forbes, who was known as 'the Punch and Judy man'? Finding it necessary to solve not one but two murders out of the past, ex-Detective Chief Superintendent David Sayer hopes to silence the wagging tongues and restore peace and tranquillity to the village. There were too many coincidences, but he needs proof that Henrietta Player was the enigmatic medium's second homicidal success. And that's where Edwina Charles surprises him - in more ways than one. And without her crystal ball! 'A Medium for Murder', the first of the Mrs Charles Murder Mysteries, which introduced the clairvoyant/private investigator, was published in the US under this title and in the UK as 'A Nice Way to Die'.
About the Author: My interest in clairvoyance dates back to my early childhood and my mother who was clairvoyant, although all of her uncanny predictions, all of which came to pass, were strictly family orientated. Many years later, while attending a business convention with my husband, I bought a pack of Tarot cards from a bookseller who was in attendance there and I became fascinated by their history. I then spent some years researching the Tarot, whether or not it originated in Egypt or Italy, and in time, this saw the birth of Madame Adele Herrmann aka Edwina Charles. A MEDIUM FOR MURDER was the first of my current series of twelve Mrs Charles Murder Mysteries which, I am happy to say, have proved to be very popular with readers of the cosy crime fiction genre. It was originally published in the UK as "A Nice Way to Die" and then in the US as "A Medium for Murder". I very much enjoy writing these novels and developing the characters who populate them, particularly the eccentric Cyril Forbes and his bizarre fixation with UFOs and "The Coming", the acid-tongued Margaret Sayer and ex-Detective Chief Superintendent of Police, David Sayer who, while he admires Mrs Charles for her shrewd perception and understanding of human nature, remains, as ever, sceptical of clairvoyance. I am currently working on the thirteenth Mrs Charles Murder Mystery which I hope to publish later in the year.