SUSPICION AT SEVEN is
the latest in my
Lois Meade Mystery series, and involves another murder
hunt alongside Detective Inspector Hunter Cowgill. The inspiration for this
story came to me one day when I was lunching in a restaurant in a converted
water mill. I remembered as a child seeing the mill and all its workings and
work people were covered with a layer of white. It looked then as if a gigantic
flour sprinkler had dusted it ready for the oven!
During lunch, I watched the huge millwheel, glassed in for safety, an attraction
for customers, going heavily round and round, dripping slimy green weed ..... A
plot, surely?
One for Lois Meade, who has become friendly with Aurora Black, an attractive
baker from her shop opposite the mill, and it is on a pleasant summer day that
the pair decide on lunch after a walk with Jemima, Lois`s small terrier, across
the water meadows.
Aurora is not entirely happily married to her husband Donald, since he has a
wandering eye, and a mistress who helps him with his pyramid jewellery selling
and other less innocent occupations. Aurora is also part of the business, and
they have one precious daughter, Millie.
A recipe for disaster? The death of a woman in bed in the Mill Hotel is the
start of a grim journey through suspicion and finally justice.
For this story, I had ready-made memories of childhood holidays with my Great
Aunt Eliza in her village bakehouse in Lincolnshire. I can smell again the
heavenly scent of bread baking and feel the heat of the big old stone oven!
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