Poisoned Pen

By Anthea Cohen

Shelbourne was a pretty little village, a place where everyone knew everyone else. 

But, as would be expected, gossip was rife and little was left unknown. Especially when there were a bunch of older women who enjoyed a gossip or two over coffee mornings.

All particularly normal for a small village, but when someone starts to send notes in white envelopes, things take a more sinister turn. Was someone having a bit of fun? Were they just bored? Or was there more to these notes?

When Jane Fisk overhears her friends talking about her son, she is shocked. Is that what they thought about him? Just because he was forty and still living at home with her? Surely they knew that he was all she had left of a turbulent relationship.

Dorothy and Michaela, two friends living together, also receive a note that throws their long-term friendship into disarray. Hugh Ainsworth knows his wife wasn’t cut out for the parish life, but she was still with him, wasn’t she? And poor Carmen, the gossip hub of the village …

All it takes is a series of typed notes to send a calm village into a frenzy that would tarnish its reputation and change the lives of the residents forever.

Anthea Cohen is the pseudonym for the acclaimed author of the Agnes Carmichael Series. For the past twenty-five years she has worked, on and off, in hospitals and as a private nurse. She has written on medicine and hospital life, been a columnist for Nursing Mirror, and has contributed regularly to World Medicine. She has published innumerable short stories, and is a popular author of books for teenagers.