| Bettina Bilby, a spinster in her late thirties, is looking after four cats for her neighbors over a long holiday weekend. In addition, she has her cantankerous, meddlesome, nagging mother to deal with. On a stormy night a carrier pigeon crashes into the house, breaking its neck. The bird turns out to be carrying a small fortune in diamonds, but it is unmarked so Bettina can't contact the owners.
To keep her mother from appropriating the diamonds to pay for repairs to their leaking roof, Bettina hides the diamonds where no-one is likely to look: in her pocket. The pigeon she hides in the neighbour's freezer. Later in the day, strange men start poking around in the gardens and hedges of the neighbourhood, and mysterious people come around pretending to be surveyors and building inspectors, asking seemingly innocent questions that are clearly designed to get them into the house. Then the neighbour, Bettina's friend Zoe, comes home and finds a dead body in the garden, and one of the cats swallows a diamond. Things get really serious when Zoe's mother is attacked in her home and beaten to death, and it is up to Bettina and Zoe to discover the identity of the two groups of strangers swarming all over the neighbourhood, find out who owns the diamonds, and discover who attacked Zoe's mother. | ||
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Plot & Themes Tone of story - suspenseful (sophisticated fear) How difficult to spot villain? - Difficult, but some clues given Time/era of story: What % of story relates directly to the mystery, not the subplot? - 70% Kind of investigator Any non-mystery subplot? descript. of violence and chases - 10 % Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 50 % Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 30 % How society works & physical descript. (people, objects, places) - 10 % Crime Thriller Yes Murder Mystery (killer unknown) Yes Main Character Gender - Female Profession/status: Ethnicity/Race Main Adversary Identity: - Male Age: - 40's-50's Motive of antagonist - money/treasure How sensitive is this character? Setting Europe Yes European country: - England/UK Small town? Yes Writing Style Accounts of torture and death? - moderately detailed references to deaths Amount of dialog - significantly more descript than dialog |
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