Readers still adore Agatha Christie and long for a successor. Ruth Rendell and P.D. James are far too free with the blood and realism. Into the vacuum comes Catriona McPherson and Dandelion Dahlia Gilver, known as Dandy, a gentlewoman of middle years, intelligent, rich, aristocratic, married and free to take on little puzzles. Lollie Balfour of Edinburgh is being terrorized by her husband. She is followed, accused of perverse habits, her mail opened, her life threatened. She asks for Dandy’s help and the only way in is for Dandy to work as Lollie’s lady’s maid, a job for which Dandy is spectacularly ill-suited. Dandy arrives, and within hours the body drops and the puzzle begins. This one is full of clever twists.