Practise to Deceive

Journeying to meet a prospective client, interior decorator Susan Faye is forced by stormy weather to stop at a motel where she is surprised by a meeting quite different from her expectations. The client is there—murdered.

The dead woman is the wealthy Olive Senley, a sophisticated lovely whose past unfolds as a many-splendored thing, in the capable hands of the versatile Captain Heimrich. Heimrich has been called into action by Susan, to whom he is now at least informally engaged.

Susan's Great Dane, Colonel, plays an important role in the activities, for it is his barking which begins the uproar leading to the discovery of Mrs. Senley's body. Other characters include husbands No. 1 and No. 2, both of whom have their suspicious features, and the devoted No. 3, stranded on his estate by a washed-out bridge at the time of the murder.

The oddities multiply with rapid profusion in this one. It's a crisp, well-plotted story, loaded with excitement, told with the Lockridges' customary vigor.

—From the dust jacket.