THE ESTATE WAS DEATH [Death for Auction, the Adventures of Jonathan Knox #3] by Emmett McDowell

MURDER WITH A DASH OF NICK AND NORA COMEDY!

When auctioneer Jonathan Knox went to appraise the late millionaire Stevens' estate, he really got an eyeful! Stevens' sexy young widow was lying unconscious and nearly nude by the pool, and her family doctor was sitting in the study with his face shot off. The real shocker came when the police routed out the murder weapon from under the widow's lace panties. Knox spotted the frame at once—for after all, if Chris Stevens was the murderess, surely she could have found a better hiding place for the gun than her lingerie drawer. Someone among the millionaire's children by his first wife, who had been cut out of the will, was the likely culprit. So Johnathan sent his shrewd-but-underpaid assistant, Elly Watson, out to dig up background information on the not-so loving family—at time and a half for overtime.

As usual, Elly dug up the goods—but she almost ended up being buried when she discovered how a simple bit of newspaper research in a public library ensured she would be in at the kill! With herself as the murderer's intended victim, and Jonathan on the far side of town. To pull both women's chestnuts out of the fire—and save the big sales commission the comely widow represented—the murder-wise Knox had to do some fast and secret bidding on the crime market. But he learned to his consternation that the skeletons-in-the-closet he'd bought were a lot more deadly as bones than they'd ever been as living flesh! Another fast moving, sprightly Jonathan Knox and Elly Watson adventure.