What is Tessa Arlen reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Tessa Arlen, author of Death Sits Down to Dinner.

Her entry begins:

The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott.

This great collection of books – there are four volumes to The Jewel in the Crown – has become my go-to for information on the British Raj in India. Beautifully told and remarkably well researched the Raj Quartet, as it is often referred to, was written in the mid-1960s. The over-arching theme relates the end of British rule in India, told through the eyes of the British families who had become mainstays in India for several generations and viewed the British presence in India as absolutely necessary to it continued ‘civilization’. To balance out perspective the story is also told by some of the Indian people who were either politically involved in ousting the British, were independent rulers under their rule, or who merely became the scapegoats of racial tension during this very turbulent time in India’s fight for independence.

The main characters of the story are...[read on]

About Death Sits Down to Dinner, from the publisher:

Filled with deceptions both real and imagined, Death Sits Down to Dinner is a delightful Edwardian mystery set in London.

Lady Montfort is thrilled to receive an invitation to a dinner party hosted by her close friend Hermione Kingsley, the patroness of England's largest charity. Hermione has pulled together a select gathering to celebrate Winston Churchill's 39th birthday. Some of the oldest families in the country have gathered to toast the dangerously ambitious and utterly charming First Lord of the Admiralty. But when the dinner ends, one of the gentlemen remains seated at the table, head down among the walnut shells littering the cloth and a knife between his ribs.

Summoned from Iyntwood, Mrs. Jackson helps her mistress trace the steps of suspects both upstairs and downstairs as Hermione's household prepares to host a highly anticipated charity event. Determined to get to the bottom of things, Lady Montfort and Mrs. Jackson unravel the web of secrecy surrounding the bright whirlwind of London society, investigating the rich, well-connected and seeming do-gooders in a race against time to stop the murderer from striking again.

Visit Tessa Arlen's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Tessa Arlen & Daphne.

The Page 69 Test: Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman.

My Book, The Movie: Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman.

The Page 69 Test: Death Sits Down to Dinner.

My Book, The Movie: Death Sits Down to Dinner.

Writers Read: Tessa Arlen.

--Marshal Zeringue