Meet the world's most unusual undercover team... It can be tough working undercover for HM Revenue & Customs, but DJ Smith has more than a little help from her trained sniffer cat, Gorgonzola, a moth-eaten Persian with gourmet tastes and a mind of her own. This first investigation finds DJ and Gorgonzola on the trail of a heroin smuggling ring operating in and around Edinburgh. Here DJ meets a cast of memorable characters including American golfing fanatic Hiram J Spinks, the glamorous Italian Signora Gina Lombardini, and the not so glamorous self-styled gastronome extraordinaire Felicity Lannelle. Beneath the innocent surface of the country house hotel eddies a sinister undercurrent. As one death follows another, who among the guests specialises in making murder look like accident?

The Edgar Award–winning author of the Peter Duluth series delivers a fun, fast-paced murder mystery set in the heyday of Hollywood. Patrick Quentin, best known for the Peter Duluth puzzle mysteries, also penned outstanding detective novels from the 1930s through the 1960s under other pseudonyms, including Q. Patrick and Jonathan Stagge. Anthony Boucher wrote: “Quentin is particularly noted for the enviable polish and grace which make him one of the leading American fabricants of the murderous comedy of manners; but this surface smoothness conceals intricate and meticulous plot construction as faultless as that of Agatha Christie.” Young Nickie Rood is in Paris working on a novel, enjoying the company of a lovely local, and generally lazing about when he learns of the death of Hollywood icon Norma Delaney. His eccentric mother, Anny, demands that he return home at this trying time. After all, Norma was one of Anny’s best friends. They had come up together, working their way to movie stardom. But they were also both facing the fact that stars fade. And with Norma’s unfortunate—and quite suspicious—demise, a plum film role is now Anny’s for the taking. Which is why she ends up cast as suspect number one in her friend’s murder. With Anny’s life and legacy on the line, Nickie must snoop his way through the highest of high society and the grimiest gutters in Tinseltown if he’s going to keep his mother from facing her final act.

The early years include principally resolutions, with few reports.

Cases argued and determined in the Supreme Court of North Carolina.