Bitter Herbs (A Willow King Mystery)

From Publishers Weekly
Willow King, drab London civil servant by day and glamorous romance writer by night, embarks on her fourth mystery when she agrees to work on a memoir of Gloria Granger, a recently deceased writer whose once popular bodice rippers had become "outmoded." Willow's task is complicated by the difficulty of finding anyone willing to say something pleasant about the self-centered and foul-tempered author. While interviewing Gloria's staff (including a much put-upon niece, Marilyn Posselthwate), publishing house employees and even a disgruntled reviewer, Willow warms to the idea that Gloria was murdered--a claim dismissed by her own lover, policeman Tom Worth. Willow's sympathies shift between the deceased victim and the still-living victims the woman left behind, triggering some (not very deep) questions about her own relationships with Tom and her housekeeper. Cooper ( Bloody Roses ) has penned an effective puzzle, but her characters often seem mean-spirited, an element that detracts from the novel's overall impact. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
British civil servant and romantic novelist Willow King is commissioned to memorialize a famous woman writer who dies of a heart attack. After questioning people who knew her, however, Willow suspects murder. A class act.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Trouble ahead for civil servant Willow King (Bloody Roses, etc.): though she's loosened up enough to acknowledge that she's secretly been writing romance novels as Cressida Woodruffe, her proposal for a new Woodruffe is coolly received at Weston and Brown, and her lover, Chief Inspector Tom Worth, has cooled considerably too. Not even the luxurious bathroom in her Belgravia Square flat or her priceless Mrs. Rusham's tactful preparation of stewed prunes can lift Willow's spirits. The solution: a monograph on her late fellow-romancer Gloria Grainger, who turns out to have had so many enemies at Weston and Brown and among her own household that she deserved to be murdered for her inheritance, her libel suit against an unimpressed reviewer, her withering bullying of her dependents, and her generally odious manner. After interrogating the suspects over a variety of tastefully prepared meals and organizing a wildly unlikely photo session at Gloria's viewing, Willow plumps for a surprising villain who seems--despite one or two subtle clues--to have been plucked out of a hat. A substandard mystery mars Willow's least overbearing appearance to date. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


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British civil servant and romantic novelist Willow King is commissioned to memorialize a famous woman writer who dies of a heart attack. After questioning people who knew her, however, Willow suspects murder. A class act.


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