Murder in a Surrey Tribe

This traditional murder mystery story is set in Blsley, an ancient English village in the heart of Surrey heathland. The detective is Impey Dalryple, a journalist in her early thirties. She is an expert in animals’ social behaviour. The murders happen in the beautiful well-kept grounds of Bisley Heath, a prestigious golf club. Seeking a respectable social life in the country after her sordid marriage to a pop musician in London, Impey has joined the club. Her belief the game with its etiquette and emphasis on trust in play will reflect in the affairs of the club is shaken by the sudden controversial death of the Vice-Captain, top London solicitor Mike Gibbon. After an early morning business visit to the club, as he drives through the entrance in his open-topped antique Jensen sports car, he is crushed by the club’s electronic gate.
The gate’s manufacturers dispute this was a fault in their gate. The detective agency they commission to investigate asks Impey to work for them because of her knowledge of animal societies. Her studies of animals in the wild, especially chimpanzees, should give her a unique understanding of human behaviour. She soon sees the same rivalries and struggles for power amongst the wide social group that comprises a golf club. Nature is still “red in tooth and claw”. Popular enough to be Vice Captain, Mike’s opposition to expensive developments of club’s property and old-fashioned views have brought him into conflict with various members, some of whom have financial interests at stake. He has also been critical of the ground staff, suspicious of the dubious substances they grow in the club’s sheds. Though ostensibly a happily married man with four daughters, Mike’s regular gorgeous svelte female golf partner, not his wife, shows signs to Impey’s watchful eye, of involvement in an illicit romance.
As she delves beneath the surface of the upper crust members lives, her own social situation is threatened. Her friends don’t want to know. Embarrassed, Impey, a reluctant sleuth, finds her job compromised by Sir Hamish Mashie who granted her a frank interview for a newspaper on condition she helped him. Knighted for his business success, but with a prison record, he presses her to use her influence with her uncle George, a prominent club member, to help him join the club. Her life is also complicated by her burgeoning romance with Roger Melbourne, nicknamed Dodger for his sleight of hand, an ex SAS army officer now earning a living as a conjuror. His party trick is to take jewellery or a handbag off a female guest and when she worries where it is, to hand it back to her. An ace golfer, his physical prowess become an embarrassment to Impey when he engages in a fight on her doorstep with Brad, one of the ground staff
When Brad drops dead on the golf course, in front of Impey’s Uncle George, taking an early morning stroll with his dog, members believe the club’s staff have suffered another unfortunate accident since Brad has ingested a poisonous weed killer. Impey’s investigations lead her to believe otherwise. Her realisation it might not be a co-incidence both Brad and Mike have died early in the morning leads her to fear for her uncle’s safety.
The threat to her uncle brings the story to its climax. When Impey hears he is invited to visit the house of the person she believes is the murderer, she arrives just in time to see, through the window, her uncle collapse.
Now Impey knows definitely who the murderer is, but she has to prove it. Her initial attempt to persuade the authorities how Mike died leads her into problems. Threats to sue her ensue. Finally she is able to find definitive proof of the murderers identity and resume her own happy social life at Bisley Heath.