Patricia Wentworth

Sally Meredith is in deadly danger after her mercurial uncle Fritzi, the genius chemist and inventor M. Frederic Lasalle, disappears into the night. He leaves her as the only person who knows how to open the Chinese puzzle box in which he has concealed the formula for his latest invention: a new...

Hugo Ross is perfect for the job as irascible inventor Ambrose Minstrel’s new secretary: young, completely inexperienced, and with an occasional stutter that makes him seem somewhat dim—a mug, in fact. But from his first day, odd things begin to happen. A stranger offers him an absurd amount...

This collection offers three novels of adventure and suspense from Patricia Wentworth, each with its own plucky and independent young heroine. First, Jane Smith is incognito at stately Luttrell Marches, in the middle of a mystery of secret formulae, political plots, and secret passages. Then...

Hard-up dressmakers’ assistant Chloe Dane yearns for a new life. But when her mysterious relative Mitchell Dane dies, leaving her the ancestral home of her family, and the secret combination to the safe hidden behind the Chinese black lacquer cabinet in the drawing room, she finds herself...

Timid Renata Molloy is in mortal peril after overhearing details of a breathtaking conspiracy. But her courageous and near-identical cousin Jane Smith—homeless and just two-and-elevenpence away from the workhouse—is willing to take her place if it means a roof over her head and plenty to eat...