Trouble Brewing by Dolores Gordon-Smith

Dolores Gordon-Smith has written a Golden Age detective story for the present day that really works, a feat that many have tried but few have accomplished.   Jack Haldean is a writer of detective stories who is also a private investigator with close links to the highest reaches of Scotland Yard and he is called in by Harold Hunt to solve the mystery of his nephew's disappearance.   Hunt is the ageing head of Hunt Coffee Ltd, the market leader in Britain, and his nephew Mark Helston was being groomed to take over the firm but, with everything to live for, in January he had walked out of his flat never to be seen again.   On the same night, Ariel Valdez the manager of Hunt's Brazilian coffee plantation also disappears.   In addition to this Hunt is convinced that someone is perpetrating a fraud on the company.   Haldean's chum at the Yard, Inspector Rackham, provides him with the files of the original investigation which leads him to Patricia Jaggard, Mark Helston's sister and wife of a manufacturer of expensive sports cars.   Patricia reveals that she and Mark were beneficiaries of a trust fund worth over two hundred thousand pounds, the distribution of which will be affected by proving the death of Mark Helston.   Haldean tracks down the solution to this mystery with a combination of solid detective work and deductive reasoning allied, of course, with having a good friend at the Yard.   Mrs Gordon-Smith has written a most entertaining novel which kept me up until the early hours as I could not put it down.   I look forward to more from this talented writer.