Washington Whispers Murder

Number 16 in the Colonel Primrose series. APA *The Lying Jade* Leslie Ford's new book will be good news for Colonel Primrose fans. After an absence of four years, the Colonel and his granite-faced sidekick, Sergeant Buck - and of course Grace Latham - are back at work in Washington. This is an especially timely book, for it concerns Senate investigating committees, the hidden lives of men high in the government, and the question of corruption. Hamilton (Call Me Ham) Vair, a rising young Congressman, is determined for personal reasons to cripple the career of Rufus Brent, recently appointed head of an important government agency. To do this Vair intends to use manufactured evidence of a scandal in Brent's family - a picture of Brent's daughter Molly supposedly running away from a night club raid. Molly herself is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and is hidden at the country home of Brent's lawyer. Into this situation comes Forbes Allerdyce, a mysterious figure who claims to be the best friend of Brent's son who has been killed in Korea. Allerdyce wants to find Molly to further his own purposes, and it devolves upon Grace Latham to prevent him. Out of these ingredients Leslie Ford has devised one of her most intriguing stories. There is romance haunted by terror, there is humor and warmth, there is murder, and finally a tragi-comic revelation which traps the killer. *Washington Whispers Murder* is for all Leslie Ford fans, and especially Primrose addicts for whom there is quite a shock in store on the last few pages.