THE SERPENT'S FANG

“I’m so frightened, because I think one of them is going to kill her.”

When Everett Carr overhears these words, he cannot help but investigate their source. Josephine Kettering is a frightened young woman. She fears that someone is plotting to murder her mother, the former actress Rowena Steele, and that the attempt will be made at Marsden Grange, the family’s country house off the Norfolk coast. Carr, haunted by demons of his own and a growing sense of guilt about his own wife’s death, offers to investigate further.

It soon becomes apparent that more than one person wishes Rowena dead and that Josephine's fears are well-founded. When Rowena is found poisoned by a lethal injection of morphine, however, there seems to be only one possible culprit – Daphne Clements, a young nurse with whom Rowena’s husband has fallen in love. The evidence against Daphne is compelling: she is found beside the corpse, only her fingerprints are on the syringe that was used to inject the poison, and most damning of all, she confesses to the crime.

And yet, Everett Carr is not convinced.

With Daphne Clements living in the shadow of the noose, Carr faces a race against time to prove her innocence and expose a cruel and cunning killer…

. . .

“Everett Carr makes an excellent detective. He has his own sufferings, which make him compassionate as well as a shrewd judge of human nature, and he’s observant of every unexplained detail. … The Serpent’s Fang is everything you want in a ‘Golden Age’ mystery: a country house, stolen poison, a missing will, and the denouement in the library where Carr reveals the final shocking twist. I couldn’t put it down and such is the dastardly ingenuity of Matthew Booth that I didn’t guess whodunnit.” 

~Jean Briggs, author of the Charles Dickens Mysteries

“…an engrossing mystery, with a despised murder victim and a group of suspects, each of whom has a strong motive to kill the victim. The description of each character is finely drawn, the setting atmospheric, and the conclusion to the mystery eminently satisfying. So many secrets. So many suspects. So many twists and turns. The Serpent’s Fang offers a sting in the tail." 

~ Laraine Stephens. author of The Reggie da Costa Mysteries