Murder and Mittens

First complete draft of a novel written during NaNoWriMo 2015.

Could you work out who the murderer was if you found yourself inside the pages of a whodunnit?

Late for a Golden Age of Crime convention, a young woman, Etta Astley and her crime novel fanatic mother Jen have a car crash and wake up inside the pages of a 1930s murder mystery novel. Etta assumes the identity of Hetty Ashcroft, a guest at a house party at Bellwood Hall while Jen takes the place of Hetty’s lady's maid, Jane James. They struggle to maintain the pretense while experiencing the differences of life ‘upstairs’ and ’downstairs’.

Things get even worse when Evangeline Spinoza the beautiful film star wife of a wealthy American financier, Lorenzo Spinoza, is found murdered in her bedroom. The valuable diamond necklace she wore that night has vanished.

Jen and Etta discover they must solve the murder to have any hope of returning to the real world. Luckily, Miss Margaret Mittens, the redoubtable heroine of the Winnifred Warlock murder mystery novels is also there to help.

This novel is a homage to the Golden Age of Crime and the Queens of Crime.