Blue Blood Will Out

By Tim Heald

As real estate moguls slice and dice the great properties of the English countryside, the rambling grounds of Abney House are kept intact by being turned into a sort of theme park of the aristocracy for the public – complete with cafeteria, sailing museum, and safari-themed shooting gallery. But the theme isn’t complete until a visiting earl is felled by a sniper’s bullet, giving Abney House what every manor needs: a blue-blooded murder. Normally this killing would not fall under the jurisdiction of Board of Trade investigator Simon Bognor, but the downed earl was tied up in a top-secret international exchange, and the killing may have had a political motive. As Bognor settles into life at the old estate, he is forced to decide which will be more dangerous: the sharpshooting assassin, or the tedious aristocratic company.

• Language: English
• Publisher: mysteriouspress.com
• Release date: Jul 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781786698728

Tim Heald

Tim Heald (b. 1944) is a journalist and author of mysteries. Born in Dorchester, England, he studied modern history at Oxford before becoming a reporter and columnist for the Sunday Times. He began writing novels in the early 1970s, starting with Unbecoming Habits (1973), which introduced Simon Bognor, a defiantly lazy investigator for the British Board of Trade. Heald followed Bognor through nine more novels, including Murder at Moose Jaw (1981) and Business Unusual (1989) before taking a two-decade break from the series, which returned in 2011 with Death in the Opening Chapter. Heald has further distinguished himself with official biographies of Prince Philip and Princess Margaret, as well as accounts of sporting heroes like cricket legends Denis Compton and Brian Johnston. He is also an experienced public speaker. Heald’s forthcoming novel, Yet Another Death in Venice (2014), is the latest in the Bognor chronicles.