Vali Noir And The Hunt Ball Poisoner: Ren Morton. 1970s UK woman PI and her Met trained poodle solve crimes in the Chilterns Underbelly!

A toast. A convulsion. A widow who hired a detective before the body was cold.

Lord Pemberton Ashcroft-Hale raises his champagne at the hunt ball, drinks, and dies with a grin no living face should wear. Strychnine.

Ex-Met private investigator Vali Noir came for a fence and a pair of stolen church candlesticks. She leaves with a murder, a dark-haired woman in burgundy who watched the dying man when everyone else looked away, and a client who produces £75 and a list of suspects within minutes. Vali does not trust her. She takes the job anyway.

Her partner CJ, a retired police poodle with a nose that has never once lied to her, finds the kennel water trough laced with the same bitter poison. The hounds never touched it. Whoever did this wanted the house to know.

The tenant farmer who hated him. The rival hunt master who needed him quiet. The stepson who inherits. The painter in the Old Dairy. A detective inspector from Vali's past, who would be delighted to see her fail.

Everyone at the Ashcroft-Hale table had a reason. Only one of them had the poison.

Inside:

• A fair-play country-house murder with a hardboiled edge: every clue is on the page before the reveal
• A working detective dog written as a real dog, with a trained nose and no magic
• Chiltern Hills detail, from the hunt ball to the towpath at Three Locks
• A heroine who left the Met rather than lie for it, and still pays the price
• The first case in a series, with a thread that carries into every book after it

Vali Noir Investigates, Book 1, by Ren Morton. Each case stands alone, and the Chiltern Syndicate thread rewards readers who start here.

Your download: a linked PDF made for tablet, phone and computer, with the front and back covers included, plus the EPUB. In the PDF, tap any chapter in the contents to jump to it. Bookmarks list every chapter in your PDF reader. A small footer on each page returns you to the contents, and the first page of every chapter links to the previous and next chapters.

Buy direct from House of Sharky Press and your download link arrives by email straight after payment.

If you'd like the print or audio book, follow this link: https://books2read.com/valinoir-hunt