The Boisjoly universe expands today as Anty’s cousin Teddy Quillfeather solves her first medley of manor house mysteries in Hardy Haul at Hardy Hall.
The theft of an immensely valuable, immensely ugly necklace is only the beginning of the intrigues and idiosyncrasies of a country weekend at Hardy Hall where Teddy’s mother has sent her with strict instructions to select an eligible bachelor from a shortlist of aristocrats, plutocrats, and copycats.
But when Teddy sets out to discourage the suitors and discover the looters with her natural knack for applied shenanigans she instead uncovers countless conspiracies, complicated by country house courtesies. It’s a comedy of manners and caper of manors and the only solution, if you’re Teddy Quillfeather, is obviously another heist…
Theodora ‘Teddy’ Quillfeather had her debut in Mystery and Malice aboard RMS Ballast, in which she helped her cousin, Anty Boisjoly, solve an impossible murder at sea.
Teddy is by no means a female Anty Boisjoly. She’s an audacious and loquacious, stylish and coquettish stiletta of the golden age and very much a citizen in good standing of the Anty Boisjoly world of whimsy, but where Anty’s capricious, Teddy is mischievous, where Anty’s deductive, Teddy gets fully involved in the mystery as it unfolds, and as the locked room murder is to Anty Boisjoly the clever caper is to Teddy Quillfeather.
Indeed, there are no murders in Teddy Quillfeather Mysteries. Instead, Teddy fully implicates herself in smooth swindles and highwire heists, rigged rooms with loaded dice, and dark horses running dodgy courses.
Clearly, she needs her own series to manage it all.
