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Title Page

A TRACE of POISON

Colleen Cambridge

A PHYLLIDA BRIGHT MYSTERY

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Copyright Page

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018

Copyright © 2022 by Colleen Gleason

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

The K with book logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2022939694

ISBN: 978-1-4967-3247-7

First Kensington Hardcover Edition: November 2022

ISBN: 978-1-4967-3249-1 (ebook)

“I promise that my detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them, using those wits which it may please me to bestow upon them, and not place reliance on, nor make use of, Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence, or Act of God.”

—Oath taken by members of the Detection Club

AUTHOR’S NOTE

AUTHOR’S NOTE

While Agatha Christie and her husband, Max Mallowan, along with the Detection Club, actually existed, the Listleigh Murder Club, Mallowan Hall, Phyllida Bright, and her staff—as well as the deadly incidents described in this book—are purely figments of the author’s imagination.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

CAST OF CHARACTERS

DETECTION CLUB MEMBERS (actual historical figures)

Agatha Christie: celebrated detective story writer; creator of the Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Tommy and Tuppence Beresford stories

G. K. Chesterton: popular crime writer of the Father Brown short stories; president of the Detection Club

Dorothy L. Sayers: famous writer of the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery series

Anthony Berkeley: suave, well-dressed, and upper-class writer of detective novels, including The Poisoned Chocolates Case

LISTLEIGH MURDER CLUB MEMBERS (fictional characters)

Digby Billdop: local vicar for the Church of England; writer of the Father Veritas mystery stories

Alastair Whittlesby: local solicitor, president of the Listleigh Murder Club, and writer of the Inspector Belfast mystery stories

Miss Crowley: a single, drably-dressed woman who writes about the rakish and adventuresome Filberto Fiero

Vera Rollingbroke: a wealthy, well-heeled woman who is rarely without her notebook and who writes stories about an upper-class woman named Bunkle and her crime-solving cat partner, Mrs. Cuddlesworthy

Louis Genevan: antiques dealer who owns a shop in Belgravia and writes mystery stories about a spinster woman