Thanks,
Fliss Chester
www.flisschester.co.uk
Books by Fliss Chester
The Fen Churche Mysteries
A Dangerous Goodbye
Night Train to Paris
Moonlit Murders
The French Escapes Romance Series
Love in the Snow
Summer at the Vineyard
Meet Me on the Riviera
Available in Audio
A Dangerous Goodbye (Available in the UK and the US)
Night Train to Paris (Available in the UK and the US)
Moonlit Murders
When a journey to New York is interrupted by missing diamonds and a body in the lifeboat, there is only one woman who can help: Fen Churche!
1945. Fen Churche follows her dreams and sails for New York. She books passage on a steam ship from France to America, excited to dance the night away in the glamorous ballroom and play games on deck. Nothing will stand in the way of her trip, not even when an eccentric heiress’s diamond tiara goes missing…
Looking forward to relaxing with her favourite crossword puzzles, Fen’s quiet passage is horribly disrupted by another crime – this time a murder. Fen finds Genie, a young actress bound for Broadway, strangled in her own cabin. With no police on board and a frantic captain, Fen decides to do a little snooping of her own.
When another body turns up, hidden in a lifeboat, whilst the ship is in the middle of the Atlantic, Fen feels sure these dreadful crimes are linked. Through her sleuthing she meets light-hearted lieutenants returning from the war, charming cabin boys and snooty first-class passengers who look down their nose at her. But it isn’t until Fen realises that one person is missing from the passenger list that she is finally on the murderer’s trail.
With only rolling waves and sea mists for company, can Fen solve the case before they dock in New York and the killer escapes for good?
You’ll be utterly hooked from page one of this warm and witty cozy! An absolute treat for fans of Agatha Christie, T.E. Kinsey and Jacqueline Winspear.
Get it here!
Acknowledgements
As always, it takes more than one person to bring a story to life, so huge thanks to my editor at Bookouture, Maisie Lawrence, and the whole editorial and marketing teams there, too. Also, my agent Emily Sweet is always on hand for advice and support – so thank you so much as always for all you do.
I’ve been down many research rabbit holes while writing this story, but once again the brilliant book Parisiennes by Anne Sebba was a great help, with so many fascinating stories, including that of Catherine Dior. Her name may have gone down in history as a perfume (Miss Dior is reputedly named after her), but she, and women like her, gave up their freedom, and in many cases their lives, to protect their friends and defend their country. As I read more and more accounts of the bravery shown by ‘normal’ people, I was awed by what those women and men went through and I salute them. Of course, I have fictionalised the characters of Christian and Catherine Dior, and their friend Pierre Balmain in this book and, beyond what is already historical record, any account I give of them is purely imagined.
A huge thank you to my art-dealing friends, Jessica and James from J&J Rawlin, who lent me books and told me about the darker side of the wartime art world. Paintings (and silverware, china and crystal as well as jewels and objets d’art) were stolen and thousands of pieces have never been returned, but the bravery of art lovers such as Rose Valland, who worked for the Resistance and did what she could to catalogue the art being removed by the Nazis, has not been forgotten. My Rose was inspired by Valland’s story, but, of course, I had to put a few more puzzles and codes in!
My thanks as always to my family – you are my support network extraordinaire and I love you. My late grandparents were friends with the daughter of German ‘degenerate’ artists (Marg and Oskar Moll, pupils of Matisse) and I was lucky enough to grow up with pieces of Marg Moll’s striking Fauvist artwork around the house. My husband, Rupert, has spent many a walk pondering plot points with me and although I don’t take him up on all of his ideas, I’m sure a few of them have snuck in. If you spot any typos or random words, I blame the cat and his penchant for walking across my keyboard for no apparent reason except to get my attention!
Published by Bookouture in 2020
An imprint of Storyfire Ltd.
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.bookouture.com
Copyright © Fliss Chester, 2020
Fliss Chester has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work.
ebook ISBN: 978-1-83888-645-5
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
