Penelope Passes: or Why Did She Die? (Rue Morgue Vintage Mysteries) First American edition

Almost everyone thought Penelope was a sweet, self-sacrificing saint. Lady Lupin didn't. And, it turns out, she wasn't the only one.

Lady Lupin, the scatterbrained wife of the vicar of Glanville, who never gets her quotes right but always gets her man, faces the biggest challenge yet in her career as an amateur sleuth when 39-year-old Penelope Stevenson is found shot to death in her garden. By now Lupin is getting used to solving murders. "There must be something queer about me," she says, "like those people in Greek tragedies. The minute I arrive upon a scene everyone cries, 'Let's haev a murder.'"

Still, Penelppe is a most unlikely murder victim. Practically everyone thought she was quite the most noble person they had ever met, a woman who had sacrificed her own happiness to look after her widowed father and younger brother. Suicide was surely a more likely answer, except that Penelope wasn't the suicidal type and, besides, the revolver found near her body was wiped clean of fingerprints. Lupin had never been one of Penelope's fans. In fact, she admits to be willing to let the murderer escape, if only he or she would make a confession, so the the law wouldn't hang either Penelope's brother Dick or his young wife Betty for the crime. Both have solid motives but as Lupin digs she soon discovers that there are no end of suspects.

Coggin displays her usual comic touch, yet also manages to paint a portrait of one of the most chilling literary female characters since Rebecca presided over Manderley. Written and set just after World War II, this third Lady Lupin mystery makes its first appearance in the U. S. It was originally titled Why Did She Die?