Death in the Foreign Office

A Golden Age Mystery

By: G.G. Vandagriff, David P. Vandagriff

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

One dreadful night, in the shrouded mists of a London peasouper, an unknown assailant knifes Ross Davis of the Foreign Office. His mentor, Neil Griffith, not only discovers the body but is arrested for the murder. Though they haven’t known Neil long, Oxford Tutors/Sleuths, Catherine and Harry Bascombe, investigate at her mother’s request. Catherine is convinced that her mother’s beau would never murder his Foreign Office protégé and future son-in-law.

As he is banned from returning to work until his name is cleared, Griffith convinces Catherine to take a temporary job liaising between him and his German Section at the Foreign Office. Anthony Eden, illustrious Foreign Secretary, believes Davis was murdered to cover up a heinous act—the leaking of military secrets to Hitler’s Germany.

Tensions are already running high in the wake of Hitler’s march into the Rhineland, boldly breaking the Treaty of Versailles. Eden’s mole in the Abwehr, German Military Intelligence, leads him to suspect a traitor in Griffith’s own German Section. Inasmuch as MI5 believe they already have the murderer in Griffith, Catherine, and Harry focus their investigation upon this four-man division of the Foreign Office.

As inquiries lead the duo in the direction of, not only Nazi but Communist and IRA conspirators, they realize they are not up against an average foe. They are courting a species of evil they have never before faced. As they probe the mysteries of the four charming suspects, danger stalks them through London streets, restaurants, and drawing rooms. Which one of the four is hiding deadly secrets they have already killed to protect?

Will they be able to bring them to light before Neil Griffith is convicted of murder and high treason?

Worth a Listen

A clever storyline with interesting sleuthing methods applied to solve various crimes. The ‚artificial‘ voice was surprisingly easy to listen to.

I prefer natural voice.

Only a natural person will get the pronunciation and enunciation correct. when it's wrong the mistake will pull you out of the story.

pleasant, but not very intriguing

This is the first book that I have read in this series, and while not bad, I am not curious to go any further. The AI voice is better than some narrators, and worse than others: average in other words. The murder at the start jumped to a different set of characters which seemed a bit disorienting to me. Maybe I have become saturated with would be sleuths from upper class backgrounds, but I never really felt invested in any of the characters (and their cups of tea and parties), so I can't say that I cared what happened to any of them. And scenes of Catherine and Dot trousseau shopping just struck as innocuous filler.
My opinion of the book did go up as the ending finally picked up the pace and made a tidy bow on the plot. have seen generally good reviews, so take mine with a grain of salt, but my next book will be an Alan Furst book that I have read before.

intrigues were awesome

virtual voice did not do the story justice as the characters could be moe rounded

I say “NO” to virtual voice

The story was interesting and fairly well written, but the narration was awful. I will never pay for virtual voice so I hope I never encounter it again.