A Murder for Miss Hortense: A Mystery - Hardcover

Pennant, Mel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593701623 ISBN 13: 9780593701621

Verlag: Pantheon Books, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

“A beautiful novel, suffused with fondness and wit. . . . A real triumph!”
—Alexander McCall Smith

Retired nurse, avid gardener, and renowned cake maker Miss Hortense has lived in Bigglesweigh, a quiet suburb of Birmingham, England, since she emigrated from Jamaica in 1960. She takes great pride in her home, starching her lace curtains bright white, and she can tell if she’s being shortchanged on turmeric before she’s taken her first bite of a beef patty. A career in nursing has also left her afraid of nobody, whether an interfering priest or a local drug dealer, and she’s an expert in deciphering other people’s secrets with just a glance.

Miss Hortense once used her skills to benefit the Pardner network—a local group of Black investors that she helped found. Until, that is, she was unceremoniously ousted from its ranks, severing her ties to the majority of her friends and community. That was thirty years ago. Now, as a new millennium dawns, an unidentified man has been found dead in the home of one of the Pardner members, a Bible quote written on a note beside his body. Suddenly, Miss Hortense finds her long-buried past rushing back, bringing memories of the worst moment of her life—and secrets behind an unsolved crime that has haunted her for decades.

It is finally time for Miss Hortense to solve a mystery that will see her and the com-munity she loves pushed to their limits. The first novel from a bold, brilliant new voice, A Murder for Miss Hortense introduces a fear-less sleuth whom readers will never forget.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

MEL PENNANT is a playwright, screenwriter and novelist. She graduated in 2014 with an MA in Screenwriting from the London College of Communication. In 2013, she won the Brockley Jack Write Now 4 award with her play, No Rhyme, and was involved with the Tamasha Theatre Company--writing for the Barbican Box. Mel has written audio plays with Tamasha and the National Archives and, in 2018, she was awarded a place on the Hachette X Tamasha scheme for aspiring playwright novelists.

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1

On the morning Blossom brought the news that the Pardner Lady, also known as Constance Margorie Brown, was dead, Miss Hortense had not long finished watching Kilroy and was in the back garden pruning the Deep Secrets. Her bloodred roses, which she had planted a lifetime ago, were put there to stop her forgetting something that was, by its own nature, quite unforgettable. The sun hadn’t yet risen to its highest point, and as she knelt down, it filtered in through the leaves, playing a kind of peekaboo against her back.


Blossom, who said she had rushed off the number 64 bus and all the way to Miss Hortense’s home, could barely get the words out: “Dead! And I never saw it!”


She carried the news all the way from Bridge Street Market, where she had been in conversation with Mr. Wright. That was the Mr. Wright who Blossom had once said favored Engelbert Humperdinck, but, apart from the light skin and sideburns, Miss Hortense couldn’t see the resemblance. It was Mr. Wright who saw the ambulance as it pulled up at a quarter to seven outside Constance’s home, number 52 Percival Road, which was the house on the corner. The ambulance didn’t leave until something like 8:15 a.m., which meant, according to Mr. Wright, that they must have been working on her hard. Mr. Wright, as they knew, lived in the council flats opposite, so although he didn’t quite have direct access into Constance’s front room, if he went out on his balcony (which he did upon hearing the sirens and seeing the flash of blue lights) and stood with his neck tilted heavily to the side, he could just about see into the front right corner of Constance’s bedroom.


Blossom took a deep breath and stopped fiddling with the chiffon scarf that hung unevenly about her neck. There was a slight tremor at the corner of her mouth. Blossom was a woman who didn’t step out of her yard without two layers of foundation and several pins in her hair. Her nails were always immaculately polished in a magenta pink. But on that morning, something had gone wrong, and one eyebrow sat higher than the other and her skin tone was uneven. She licked her lips and continued.


Constance, like Miss Hortense and Blossom, lived by herself, although unlike them, Constance had children—a son and daughter—but Mr. Wright was quite sure that it was she in the body bag that was zipped up all the way to the top. “Body bag” was whispered by Blossom, and she crossed herself before repeating the words and then crossing again, despite the fact that Blossom wasn’t a Catholic or in any way a follower of any religion—except, if there were such a religion as Love Thy Money, then it’s fair to say that Blossom would have been a very devoted member.


Blossom was quite sure that the information she had was correct. There was no mistaking it. And then, just like that, when she’d got it all out, Blossom deflated like a balloon and nearly lost her footing on Miss Hortense’s doorstep because it was a shock. The shock of having Constance be quite alive and full of life, taking up even more space than was strictly necessary, for so many years, to the unbelievable realization that she had now become a Hope No More.


For once, this was not a death that Blossom was claiming she had foretold. That was what the “I never saw it!” bit was about. Blossom generally knew everything that was going to happen after it had happened, but she was particularly accurate when it came to death.


“I can’t believe it,” she said again, the sweat dripping from her brow. It was normally at least an eighteen-minute walk from the bus stop to Miss Hortense’s, but this day, according to Blossom, she made it in four and a half minutes.


There was nothing for it but to let Blossom in and get the little glasses from the cabinet and pour the neat white rum, Wray & Nephew, all the way to the top of each.


“I . . .” said Blossom, gripping the glass hard. But nothing further came out. It was rare for Blossom to be without words. It had happened only once before, in the summer of 1968, after her second husband, Lester (the one with the funny eye), hit her and she had boxed him
so hard that he flew across the room and hit his head on the sideboard. She had rushed all the way to Miss Hortense’s then too.


Now both of them fell silent as they contemplated what it meant for the Pardner, indeed for them all, now that the Pardner Lady was dead.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Pantheon Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593701623
• ISBN 13: 9780593701621
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 337
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: PANTHEON; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/PGN/pantheon-graphic-library/; ; Attn: Andrea T Sheridan 1745 BROADWAY, 14-1; NEW YORK; NY; 10019; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar