In 1906 two carriages arrive at Oddsen End, the estate of Lord and Lady Pilkington, each bearing an orphaned infant girl. In the first, Houndstooth, the butler, arrives with Pandora, daughter of the Pilkington's oldest son. Her parents died in Africa. In the second is Lady Pilkington with Minnie, from a convent in Bavaria, to be a companion for Pandora. The tiny infants bear strong resemblance and skullduggery abounds! Members of the household switch them in their cradles for various reasons until no one knows who's who. The girls grow up, Pandora the heiress apparent, and Minnie apparently the maid. Lady Pilkington lost her estate through a forced marriage. If Lord Pilkington dies first, the estate is hers and she names her heir. If she dies first, he does. Their second son, Henry, is their "spare," but he holds no hope of inheriting. Then, during a wedding party, Lord Pilkington takes a catastrophic fall down the main staircase and later, Lady Pilkington is found dead on the floor of the wine cellar. Were they pushed? Who died first? Enter Detective Inspector Gotchas of the Flitwick Police. He and Houndstooth will sort things out and set things straight. Or will they?

In 1906 two carriages arrive at Oddsen End, the estate of Lord and Lady Pilkington, each bearing an orphaned infant girl. In the first, Houndstooth, the butler, arrives with Pandora, daughter of the Pilkingtons oldest son. Her parents died in Africa. In the second is Lady Pilkington with Minnie, from a convent in Bavaria, to be a companion for Pandora. The tiny infants bear strong resemblance and skullduggery abounds! Members of the household switch them in their cradles for various reasons until no one knows whos who. The girls grow up, Pandora the heiress apparent, and Minnie apparently the maid. Lady Pilkington lost her estate through a forced marriage. If Lord Pilkington dies first, the estate is hers and she names her heir. If she dies first, he does. Their second son, Henry, is their spare, but he holds no hope of inheriting. Then, during a wedding party, Lord Pilkington takes a catastrophic fall down the main staircase and later, Lady Pilkington is found dead on the floor of the wine cellar. Were they pushed? Who died first? Enter Detective Inspector Gotchas of the Flitwick Police. He and Houndstooth will sort things out and set things straight. Or will they?

Entertaining!These words best describe a book I just read. Let me start by saying it completely goes against the grain of anything you';ve previously read.

Butler Augustus Keggs becomes involved after a group of millionaires devise a plot to invest money in a marital tontine.

A COUNTRY HOUSE MYSTERY PERFECT FOR FANS OF AGATHA CHRISTIE Every family has secrets, but now they are turning deadly... On a dark night, along a lonely country road, barrister Frank Amberley stops to help a young lady in distress and discovers a sports car with a corpse behind the wheel. The girl protests her innocence and Amberley believes her—at least until he gets drawn into the mystery and the evidence incriminating Shirley Brown begins to add up. Why Shoot a Butler? is an English country-house murder with a twist. In this beloved classic by Georgette Heyer, the butler is the victim, every clue complicates the puzzle, and the bumbling police are well-meaning but completely baffled. Fortunately, amateur sleuth Amberley is as brilliant as he is arrogant as he ferrets out the desperate killer—even though this time he's not sure he wants to know the truth...

From Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities fellow Wil Haygood comes a mesmerizing inquiry into the life of Eugene Allen, the butler who ignited a nation's imagination and inspired a major motion picture: The Butler: A Witness to History, the highly anticipated film that stars six Oscar winners, including Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey (honorary and nominee), Jane Fonda, Cuba Gooding Jr., Vanessa Redgrave, and Robin Williams; as well as Oscar nominee Terrence Howard, Mariah Carey, John Cusack, Lenny Kravitz, James Marsden, David Oyelowo, Alex Pettyfer, Alan Rickman, and Liev Schreiber. With a foreword by the Academy Award nominated director Lee Daniels, The Butler not only explores Allen's life and service to eight American Presidents, from Truman to Reagan, but also includes an essay, in the vein of James Baldwin’s jewel The Devil Finds Work, that explores the history of black images on celluloid and in Hollywood, and fifty-seven pictures of Eugene Allen, his family, the presidents he served, and the remarkable cast of the movie.

"Joe Orton's last play, What the Butler Saw, will live to be accepted as a comedy classic of English literature" (Sunday Telegraph) The chase is on in this breakneck comedy of licensed insanity, from the moment when Dr Prentice, a psychoanalyst interviewing a prospective secretary, instructs her to undress. The plot of What the Butler Saw contains enough twists and turns, mishaps and changes of fortune, coincidences and lunatic logic to furnish three or four conventional comedies. But however the six characters in search of a plot lose the thread of the action - their wits or their clothes - their verbal self-possession never deserts them. Hailed as a modern comedy every bit as good as Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Orton's play is regularly produced, read and studied. What the Butler Saw was Orton's final play."He is the Oscar Wilde of Welfare State gentility" (Observer)