A Harder Thing Than Triumph

"Simon, I have the feeling I'm living in the middle of a cross-stitch sampler of industriousness." Helen Bullock had intended to show Simon Bede high summer in the Berkshires; her plans hadn't included an enforced but pleasant stay at Beemeadows Farm, a busy community led by the stellar Charming Adaams and composed of a rich mixture of friends. And an enemy. But Channing relishes the rustic life, although his interests, from politics to pottery, take him away almost as frequently as did his career as international and intellectual globe trotter. And, as before, he leaves things in the hands of his exemplary wife, Louisa. But the peaceful rural atmosphere of hay baling and berry picking is broken, just as thunder and rain break the midsummer weather, when they find murder has not only joined Beemeadows but that everyone in it has a motive to murder ... and more than once.