"Dunn has once again written a charming cozy featuring an intelligent, strong woman. A treat for Daisy's fans as well as those who enjoy Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs." – Booklist In September 1926, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher visits Sybil Sutherby, a school friend now living in Derbyshire as the confidential secretary to a novelist. Suspecting that something is seriously amiss, Sybil has asked Daisy to discretely investigate. Upon arrival, Daisy finds a household of relatives and would-be suitors living off the hospitality of Humphrey Birtwhistle, who had been supporting them through his thrice-yearly, pseudonymous Westerns. When he took ill, though, Sybil took over writing them while he recovered, only to see the sales increase. Now, she fears that someone in the household is poisoning Birtwhistle to keep him ill and Sybil writing the better-paying versions. But before Daisy can even get decently underway, Humphrey Birtwhistle dies under suspicious circumstances and Daisy now faces a death to untangle, a house full of suspects and a Scotland Yard detective husband who is less than pleased at this turn of events, in Gone West . “Dunn has once again written a charming cozy featuring an intelligent, strong woman. A treat for Daisy's fans as well as those who enjoy Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs.” ― Booklist “Delicious...pleasantly reminiscent of the old-fashioned English mysteries of a bygone era” ― The Denver Post on Gunpowder Plot “Set in 1926, Dunn's latest enjoyable Daisy Dalrymple mystery will please fans of traditional English whodunnits...The aristocratic but very modern Daisy makes a fordmidable amateur sleuth.” ― Publishers Weekly on Anthem for Doomed Youth “Dunn writes enchantingly of 1920s England: its period accoutrements of cars, cocktails, and the always delightful Daisy.” ― Mystery Scene on Sheer Folly CAROLA DUNN is the author of many mysteries featuring Daisy Dalrymple, including Sheer Folly , Gone West and Heirs to the Body, as well as numerous historical novels. Born and raised in England, she lives in Eugene, Oregon. Gone West A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery By Carola Dunn Minotaur Books Copyright © 2013 Carola Dunn All right reserved. ISBN: 9781250021595 ONE   The approach was not inviting. In spite of her spiffy new—well, not a 1926 model, but almost new—motor-car, Daisy felt discouraged. First she had to navigate the grim, smoke-belching Potteries towns, one of those lists of names beloved of geography teachers: Stoke, Hanley, Burslem, Longton, Tunstall, Fenton. Amalgamating them into the city of Stoke-on-Trent hadn’t made them any prettier. Beyond Derby came an endless series of equally grim, grimy mining villages; rows of tiny, grey cottages lining the steep-cobbled streets. Small shops, pubs, and chapels merged into the general dinginess. Here and there she saw the surface excrescences of mines—large, squat buildings of blackened brick, loomed over by tall chimneys and mysterious iron wheels. In between, glimpses of green, precipitous slopes would have offered moments of relief had they not been wreathed in veils of autumnal mist. Daisy clenched the steering wheel with fingers crossed, praying she’d reach her goal before the mists turned to fog. “I must have been mad to come,” she muttered to herself. *   *   * It had all started with a perfectly innocent letter. Sybil Sutherby, née Richland, had been at school with Daisy. They hadn’t met for many years—in fact, not since Sybil left school in 1915, a year ahead of Daisy. An occasional Christmas card in the early years had reported her marriage followed by the birth of a daughter. Daisy hadn’t been invited to either wedding or christening, but there was nothing to cavil at in that. Not only was Sybil a year older and little more than an acquaintance, the War had put paid to lavish celebrations of such events. As far as Daisy could recall, she hadn’t heard so much as a whisper from or about Sybil in ten years. Nor had she wondered what had become of her school-fellow. They had never been close enough for that. So she was surprised when the letter arrived. It was just a note, really. Sybil, living in the country, was coming up to London for a couple of days. She would love to see Daisy. Could they meet for coffee, perhaps, or lunch or afternoon tea? On the day specified, Daisy had arranged to meet her best friend, Lucy, alias Lady Gerald Bincombe, for lunch at Maxim’s, in Wardour Street. Though Lucy would have preferred Monico’s or the Café Royal, Maxim’s was conveniently near the publisher of their book on the Follies of England. In ecstasies over the success of that venture, he was eager to discuss with them another book of photographs by Lucy with commentary by Daisy. Succumbing to her besetting sin, curiosity, Daisy had written to Sybil asking her to join them—and posted the letter before mentioning it to Lucy. “Sybil Richland?” Lucy’s outrage came clearly along