Adam Dalgliesh mysteries

Sally Jupp was a sly and sensuous young woman who had used her body and her brains to make her way up the social ladder. Now she lay across her bed with dark bruises from a strangler's fingers forever marring her lily-white throat--and it was up to Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh to unmask the murderer.

Maurice Seton was a famous mystery writer--but no murder he ever invented was more grisly than his own death. When his corpse is found in a drifting dinghy with both hands chopped off at the wrists, ripples of horror spread among his bizarre circle of friends. Now it's up to brilliant Scotland Yard inspector Adam Dalgliesh and his extraordinary aunt to uncover the shocking truth behind this writer's death sentence before the plot takes another murderous...

Responding to an old friend's call, Commander Adam Dalgliesh travels to Toynton Grange, a convalescence home in Dorset, where he finds his friend dead and, himself weakened by a recent illness, encounters multiple murder and malicious intrigue