Matricide at St. Martha's: A Robert Amiss/Baronness Jack Troutback Mystery

Ruth Dudley Edwards

May 2011 · Poisoned Pen Press Inc

About this ebook

St. Martha’s College, Cambridge, had been staggering along on a shoestring for decades. Then alumna Alice Toon leaves her old school a huge fortune. The dons immediately fall to fighting over the spoils. The Virgins, led by Dame Maud Theodosia Buckbarrow, believe the bequests should be spent on scholarships. The Dykes­—fewer in number but better street fighters—want to raise a center of Gender and Ethnic Studies. The Old Women (mostly men) dream of fine vintages to be laid down in a decent new wine cellar. Impasse! They’ve reckoned without the Bursar, Jack Troutbeck. She elects to infiltrate this maelstrom of politics with her own agent, Robert Amiss, a former civil servant with a talent for sorting things out. No sooner does he arrive on the scene where the Virgins are getting the upper hand than Dame Maud is murdered, leading into what Mike Ripley of The Daily Telegraph described as: “An acidly funny romp... Superbly bitchy on the none-too-fragrant groves of academe.”

About the author

Dr Ruth Dudley Edwards was born and brought up in Dublin, Ireland. Since she graduated she has lived in England, where she has been a teacher, a Cambridge postgraduate student, a marketing executive, a civil servant and, finally, a freelance writer, journalist and broadcaster.An historian and prize-winning biographer, her recent non-fiction includes the authorized history of The Economist, a portrait of the British Foreign Office and a book about the newspaper world of the mid-twentieth century. She uses her knowledge of the British establishment in her satirical crime novels: targets so far include the civil service, gentlemen’s clubs, Cambridge colleges, the House of Lords, the Church of England, publishing, literary prizes and - always - political correctness. She has three times been short-listed for awards from the Crime Writers’ Association. www.ruthdudleyedwards.com