A Deadly Inheritance

Charlotte Vassell

A DOUBLE murder, an ever-deepening mystery, and skeletons dropping out of the closets of the rich and influential means just one thing... the irrepressible Met Detective Inspector Caius Beauchamp is back on duty and this time he’s pursuing a case uncomfortably close to home.

If you like your crime mysteries to have all the complex detective work and exquisitely drawn characters of Agatha Christie but with an original and insightful voice, an acidly satirical edge, and a decidedly 21^st century vibe, then treat yourself to the third book of Charlotte Vassell’s fun, original and entertaining whodunit series.

After the runaway success of The Other Half and The In Crowd, Vassell (pictured below) delivers another gripping, high-energy police procedural mystery set within a London super-rich and powerful milieu, in which only a chosen few born into staggering wealth can comfortably exist, and exploring contemporary issues like extremism, political intrigue, online influencers and racism. It’s a tale of upper class excesses and attitudes, full of wickedly incisive social commentary, plenty of twists and turns, and a cast of goodies and baddies that could only have been conjured up by a writer who also trained to tread the boards.

When DI Caius Beauchamp is dispatched to a double murder in a smart South London townhouse, it looks at first like a simple botched burglary.  

The bodies of the home’s elderly owner, Mona Frogmorton, and an unknown attacker wearing a balaclava, thought to be the thief, were found by Mona’s granddaughter Rosie Krige who had woken at 3am feeling the twinges of a brutal hangover after an afternoon spent drinking with her university pals. She crept downstairs for a glass of water only to stumble across a shocking and bloody scene in the kitchen.

But then Caius gets a tip-off about the matriarch Mona’s will and it turns out this well-heeled family has a nefarious past. Not only that, Caius saw Mona and her granddaughter on a very recent luxury train ride between London and Bath with his high society milliner girlfriend Callie Foster, and now the case is bordering on the personal. Caius’s own family circumstances have changed dramatically recently due to a complicated inheritance clause which means he is now (albeit reluctantly) in line to inherit Frithsden Old Hall, his family’s Jacobean manor house in Hertfordshire.

As Caius – along with his chirpy fellow officers, DS Matt Cheung and DC Amy Noakes – investigate the two murders, they discover a family full of disturbing secrets. With his reputation on the line and powerful people pressuring him to close the case, Caius must decide what’s more dangerous… the bodies on the floor or the skeletons in the closet?

Vassell’s addictive murder mystery plunges readers into a world of money and power as she explores some of high society’s dark and rancid corners whilst fearlessly puncturing the pretensions, entitlement and conceit of the British class system, and exquisitely nailing the faux manners and mores of the filthy rich.

And what a clever, complex story of tangled family secrets, privilege, excess and corruption this is, unfolding seamlessly through the sharpest writing and an entertaining blend of descriptive language, lively dialogue and an irresistible brand of sardonic humour.

With the very moral Caius leading the action, A Deadly Inheritance is both caustically funny and refreshingly different, serving up familiar tropes like red herrings, intriguing suspects and page-turning plotting with wit, style and moments of high drama. Add on a team of charismatic detectives, the deliciously adorable Callie, a fine line in banter, and a gut punch twist in the tail, and you have a clever concoction of crime fiction with a side serving of satire!
(Faber & Faber, paperback, £9.99)