Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave

MORE RAVES FOR
JEMIMA SHORE AT THE SUNNY GRAVE:

“For readers who like their murder British and civilized, their crime spiced with malice but not messy, this book—like Fraser’s other works—won’t disappoint.”

—Dail Willis, Associated Press

“This compilation of short stories shows the true talents of Ms. Fraser as a mystery writer. The stories are diverse, never allowing the reader to become bored. She is creative, taking both male and female perspectives. Her characters work well with the easy-to-follow plots that have much irony and unexpected turns. A smooth writing style and a vibrant imagination have turned this collection of short stories into a potential classic.”

—
Rendezvous

“The stories abound with eccentric characters, taking twists and turns that cause chuckles in spite of their gruesomeness.”

—
Dayton Daily News

PRAISE FOR ANTONIA FRASER:

THE CAVALIER CASE

“[LADY ANTONIA] WRITES BOTH HISTORY AND MYSTERY WITH ZEST AND VERVE.… ANTONIA FRASER IS A WONDER, AND SO IS
THE CAVALIER CASE
.”

—
The New York Times Book Review

“[THIS] BESTSELLING AUTHOR SLEEKLY WEAVES ALL HER PASSIONS TOGETHER.… WITTY, DROLL, AND A DELIGHTFUL BLEND OF SEX, HISTORY, SCHOLARSHIP AND DETECTION.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

YOUR ROYAL HOSTAGE

“A PLAYFUL ROMP … NOT ONLY IS THE BOOK HILARIOUS, IT’S BRILLIANTLY OBSERVED AND A WELCOME RETURN TO THE COMPANY OF THE VERY SMART AND LIKABLE JEMIMA SHORE.”

—
Cosmopolitan

“SHARP, SOPHISTICATED, LITERATE,
YOUR ROYAL HOSTAGE
IS A BOOK FOR THOSE WHO LIKE THEIR MAYHEM STYLISH RATHER THAN STRIDENT AND SHOULD APPEAL TO ROYAL WATCHERS AND ROYAL KNOCKERS ALIKE.”

—Reginald Hill

A SPLASH OF RED

“JEMIMA WORKS IT OUT IN ASSERTIVE, OFTEN WITTY STYLE … MOST ENJOYABLE.”

—
Houston Chronicle

QUIET AS A NUN

“A JUDICIOUS MIXTURE OF PUZZLE, EXCITEMENT, AND TERROR.”

—P. D. James

These stories first appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies in England and the United States:
The Compleat Imbiber
edited by Cyril Ray;
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
edited by Eleanor Sullivan;
The John Creasey Collection
edited by Herbert Harris; the
London Evening News; Sisters in Crime
edited by Sara Paretsky;
Suntory Magazine; Winter’s Crimes
edited by Hilary Hale; and
Woman’s Realm
.

I am extremely grateful to all the editors who commissioned and published them.

“
T
his-is-your-graveyard-in-the-sun—”

The tall young man standing in her path was singing the words lightly but clearly. It took Jemima Shore a moment to realize exactly what message he was intoning to the tune of the famous calypso. Then she stepped back. It was a sinister and not particularly welcoming little parody.

Ever since she had arrived in the Caribbean, she seemed to have had the tune echoing in her ears. How old was it? How many years was it since the inimitable Harry Belafonte had first implanted it in everybody’s consciousness? No matter. Whatever its age, the calypso was still being sung today with charm, vigour and a certain relentlessness on
Bow Island; and on the other West Indian islands she had visited in the course of her journey.

It was not the only tune to be heard of course. The loud noise of music, she had discovered, was an inseparable part of Caribbean life, starting with the airport. The heavy, irresistible beat of the steel band, the honeyed wail of the singers, all this was happening somewhere if not everywhere all over the islands late into the night: the joyous sound of freedom, of dancing, of drinking (rum punch) and, for the tourists at any rate, the sound of holiday.

It was not the sound of holiday for Jemima Shore, Investigator. Or not officially so. That was all to the good, Jemima being temperamentally one of those people whose best holidays combined some work with a good deal of pleasure. She could hardly believe it: Megalith Television, her employers, had actually agreed in principle to a programme which took her away from freezing Britain to the sunny Caribbean in late January. This was a reversal of normal practice, by which Cy Fredericks, Jemima’s boss (and the effective boss of Megalith), was generally to be found relaxing in the Caribbean in February, while Jemima herself, if she got there at all, was liable to be dispatched into the inconvenient humidity of August. Not this time! And a fascinating project to boot. This was definitely her lucky year. Enlarging on the theme, she thought that Bow Island itself was probably going to be her lucky island …

“This is my island in the sun …” But that wasn’t of course what the young man facing her had actually sung. “Your
graveyard
in the sun.” Mine? Or yours? Since the man in question was standing between Jemima Shore and the historic grave she had come to visit, it was possible that he was being proprietorial as well as aggressive. On second thought, surely not. It was a joke, a cheerful joke on a
cheerful, very sunny day. But the young man’s expression was, it seemed to her, more threatening than quizzical.

Jemima gazed back with that special sweet smile so familiar to viewers of British television. (These same viewers were also aware from past experience that Jemima, sweet as her smile might be, stood no nonsense from anyone, at least not on her programme.)

On closer inspection, the man was not really as young as all that. She saw someone of perhaps roughly her own age—early thirties. He was white, although so deeply tanned that she guessed he was not a tourist but formed part of the small loyal European population of Bow Island, a place fiercely proud of its recent independence from a much larger neighbour.

The stranger’s height, unlike his youth, was not an illusion; he towered over Jemima and she herself was not short; in fact, having long legs, she always surprised her television fans by how tall she was in real life. He was also handsome, or would have been except for an oddly formed, rather large nose with a high bridge to it and a pronounced aquiline curve. If the nose marred the regularity of his features, the impression left was not unattractive, in a man at least; it was not a nose that a woman could have easily carried off—an ordinary woman that is. The stranger was wearing whitish cotton shorts, like more or less every male on Bow Island, black or white. His orange T-shirt also bore the familiar island logo or crest: the outline of a bow in black, and a black hand drawing it back. Beneath the logo was printed one of the enormous variety of local slogans—cheerful again—designed to make a play upon the island’s name. This one read: “
THIS IS THE END OF THE SUN-BOW
!”

No, in that friendly T-shirt, he was surely not intending to be aggressive.

In that case, the odd thing about the whole encounter
was that the stranger still stood absolutely still in Jemima’s path. She could in fact glimpse the large stone Archer Tomb just behind him, which she recognized from the postcards. For a smallish place, Bow Island was indeed remarkably rich in historic relics. Nelson in his time had visited it with his fleet: like its neighbours, Bow Island had found itself engulfed in the Napoleonic Wars, faraway naval battles fought against an exotic West Indian background helping to decide the European contest. Two hundred-odd years before that, first British, then French, then British again had invaded and settled the islands, which had once belonged to Caribs and before that Arawaks: finally into this melting pot Africans had been brought forcibly to work the sugar plantations on which its wealth depended. All these elements in various degrees had gone to make up the people now known casually among themselves as the Bo’landers.