Tigerlily's orchids

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Christine Poulson

From author's website: During her maternity leave, Cambridge academic Cassandra James gets involved in a production of EAST LYNNE. There is as much drama behind the scenes as there is on stage. The director is desperate to revive his flagging career. The maker of a fly-on-the-wall documentary is equally desperate to launch his. The crisis is reached when the leading lady disappears before the first night. Cassandra thinks it is more than stage fright, for Melissa has left six-month-old Agnes behind. Cassandra’s struggles to uncover the truth lead her deeper and deeper in a maze of illusion and deceit. Someone close at hand is not what they seem. Cassandra and her baby are in grave danger . . .

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Earl Derr Biggers

This book is a murder mystery set in San Francisco. Charlie Chan the Chinese detective, on his way home to Honolulu, is persuaded to help with the investigation of the murder of a retired Scotland Yard commissioner. Sir Frederic has been re-investigating some old unsolved cases that have haunted him: a murder in London and the disappearance of a young woman in India. Charlie Chan suspects that one of these cases holds the clue to his murder.

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Sara Woods

Antony Maitland #23 Antony Maitland, barrister and very confidential detective, reluctantly journeys to a grey town in the English midlands to defend a young boy who is, on the face of it, guilty of murder and art theft. The boy is mysteriously unwilling to say anything on his own behalf. As long as the boy refused to speak there was no possible line of defense. In order to save his client from what, Maitland finally realizes, will be a gross miscarriage of justice, he has to piece together the boy's troubled past and in the process, stumbles across a web of criminal intent in which the boy is just one victim -- and Maitland is the other.

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Ngaio Marsh

A Christmas pageant turns unholy. Holed up at Hilary Bill-Tasman's manor estate for Christmas, Troy Alleyn is to paint the man's portrait and, while she's there, view the Druid Christmas pageant. Along with a pack of eccentric guests, Troy enjoys the festivities-- until one of the pageant's players mysteriously disappears into the snowy night. Did the hired help-- each a paroled murderer from the nearby prison-- have a deadly hand in this Christmas conundrum? Inspector Roderick Alleyn arrives to join his wife in finding the lost man-- and unraveling the glaring truth from the glittering tinsel.