Adrian Beauclerk-Fisk is a writer of cozy British mysteries, and he's also an absolute beast. Pompous, phony, and cruel to his family, frequently changing his will in favor of whichever of his children has momentarily pleased him (or displeased him the least), he decides to have some real fun by inviting his four children to his wedding. They are aghast of course, seeing a threat to their inheritances, but they all head toward his manor, figuratively attempting to elbow their way into his favor and hopefully talk him out of this marriage to an obvious gold digger. (It takes one to know one!) Then Sir Adrian drops the bombshell that his marriage is a done deal, that he and Violet are already man and wife and that his will has (yet again) been changed--but he doesn't say how. Shortly thereafter, Sir Adrian's eldest child Ruthven is brutally murdered, and it's not long before he follows his son to the afterlife. Just about everyone has motive to kill one or another of them, so who dunnit?
This felt like one of classic who done it written by Agatha Christie with lots of red hearings and a pretty good twist at the end. Unfortunately I got rather annoyed by the clever dialog that I felt distracted from a pretty good mystery. I also didn't feel connected to the main characters - Detective Inspector St. Just and Sergeant Fear as they felt kind of superfiscial. Maybe I should try another as I believe there are several Malliet has written. I felt like I should have liked it more than I really did.