Charlotte Richmond, a young widow left alone by the death of her husband in India, makes her way back to England and to the home of his family. She is alone in the world and penniless and hopes to find a safe haven where she can start a respectable new life.
Her husband, Frampton Richmond, was a deeply unpleasant man, whose drinking, cruelty and vices made him thoroughly unpopular both at home and abroad, so his demise was not exactly mourned. However, his mother, obsessed with the lineage and glory of the Richmonds believes her son was perfect and her dominating presence makes life rather difficult for the rest of the family. Charlotte is settling in nicely to her 
new life, keeping very quiet about her rather raffish background which she knows will cause a scandal if known, Frampton's brothers and sister are getting on rather well without him, when to everyone's amazement and it must be said, horror, Frampton turns up. He had been involved in an ambush in the Indian Mutiny and everyone thought he had met his death there but he had managed to escape.
No prodigal son welcome here. He rapidly sets about alienating everyone and causing upset and misery and so when Charlotte goes upstairs one night, where she has been nursing him through a fever, and finds him dead again, she feels a profound sense of relief. On further investigation, however, she sees signs that he has been murdered. It must have been somebody in the house, a member of the family, and she has a lot of suspects to search amongst.
Great fun, wittily written with tongue in cheek and I sat down over the weekend and read this straight through and thoroughly enjoyed it. Nicola pays tribute to Jane Austen as one of the characters, who Charlotte finds herself attracted to, rejoices in the name of Mr Knightley and some fun is had with this. The doctor who is called out to look after Frampton in his illness is called Mr Perry and I had a quiet grin at this as well.
As I always liked Mr Knightley I was pleased to note that in Murder Most Welcome, his wife's name is Elaine...
