Author(s): Hamilton CRANE

Fiction

Retired art teacher Miss Seeton steps in where Scotland Yard stumbles. Armed with only her sketch pad and umbrella, she is every inch an eccentric English spinster and at every turn the most lovable and unlikely master of detection. Have the smugglers made a grave mistake? Customs & Excise are tracking a gang of cigar-smugglers who operate on the quiet Kent coast near Plummergen, home to retired art teacher Miss Emily Seeton. Their attempt at a midnight ambush goes wrong, and a man is found dead. As Miss Seeton sketches the most notorious tomb in Plummergen churchyard - the one built for 19th-century smuggler Abraham Voller - she meets a young American tourist. He claims to be a descendant of the Voller family, but is he a truly innocent ancestor-hunter, or do smugglers inherit their trade? When the school concert includes a performance of Kipling's "A Smuggler's Song" it begins to seem that everyone is at it ... but we can rely on Miss Seeton to ensure that the police will get their man, and the smugglers' dreams will go up in smoke! Serene amidst every kind of skulduggery, this eccentric English spinster steps in where Scotland Yard stumbles, armed with nothing more than her sketchpad and umbrella. AUTHOR: Hamilton Crane is the pseudonym used by Sarah J. Mason when writing for the Miss Seeton series. She has also written detective fiction under her own name, but should not be confused with the Sarah Mason (no middle initial) who writes a rather different kind of book.