Not every man wants his home to be his castle. Such were the sentiments of Perce Spender when he found himself in the draughty drawing room of Chetton Hall. The sudden demise of a distant relative had transformed Perce from the prince of his local pub to the twelfth Earl of Ellesmere, Master of a mansion about as cosy as the British Museum.

Perce planned to sell the family manse and make his fortune. But someone sinister among his slightly shady offspring and largely larcenous friends would relish living like a lord. Sudden death was coming to Spender’s ancestral halls, and this time it would be murder committed with just a touch of class.