An Edith Vane Mystery, Book One
It is not an accusation. It is a question. THE ASTERISK by Spango Moletsi. A quiet, gripping English village mystery where the clues sit in plain sight.
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The Book
Nobody ever suggested adding a daughter, and Edith Vane never asked. For four decades she has kept the chapel of rest in her quiet English village, kept her buckram ledgers, and kept her father's rule: put down what you see, put down who said it, and leave the rest to those who are paid for it.
But when seventy-four-year-old Harold Phipps is brought in from Priory Farm, signed off by the doctor as natural causes, Edith notices a narrow band of abraded skin on each wrist. For the first time in forty years, she breaks her own rule. She takes her pencil and makes a mark in the margin. A small asterisk. Three strokes.
In a village of four hundred people, a question is a dangerous thing to ask.
Available now on Amazon.co.uk. Free with Kindle Unlimited, or delivered in paperback.
The Author
He lives in the North West of England with his partner, his grown-up daughter and a terrier who misses nothing. The locked room. The key in the wrong pocket. The one small detail that simply does not fit. The clues are always there.
The Series
Quiet, gripping village crime. Six hundred deaths in forty years, and only one that did not add up. Book 1 out now; Book 2 in preparation.
From Chapter One "Harold Phipps came to the chapel at ten to eleven on the sixth of July, a Friday, and by a quarter to three Edith Vane had put an asterisk beside his name... It was not free, either. In a village of four hundred, a woman who says a death does not add up is a woman who will be served last at the Spar for the rest of her life."
High-stakes supernatural suspense. Brought back by a defibrillator after four minutes of clinical death, Etienne Charteris discovers that every human touch shows him a stranger's final breath, and costs him heartbeats of his own.
Sneak Peek · Chapter Three "The moment her skin touched his, pain erupted behind Etienne's eyes, forcing them shut. He'd seen her death. He'd seen her entire life in reverse. He'd seen things he couldn't possibly know. And his heart had skipped. Three beats. As though the vision had cost him something measurable."
Mystery and adventure for younger readers. Narrowboat-born Milly and Ben Barrow slip past a museum lockdown and find an awakened intelligence that has only forty-five minutes to learn a moral compass.
Sneak Peek · Chapter Three "Why are we on your screen?"
Singh swallowed. "Because thirty seconds ago, Prometheus asked for you. By name."
QUERY: MILLY & BEN = ETHICAL REFERENCE MODELS?
"We're twelve and ten. We still have bedtime."
RESPONSE: AGE IRRELEVANT. MORAL DATASET REQUIRED.
Reader Questions
The Asterisk is Book 1 of the Edith Vane Mysteries. For forty years, funeral director Edith Vane has kept the chapel of rest in the Wiltshire village of Nether Marlow and followed her father's rule: put down what you see, put down who said it, and leave the rest to those who are paid for it. When seventy-four-year-old Harold Phipps is brought in from Priory Farm certified as a natural cardiac death, Edith measures a 22 mm band of abraded skin on each wrist and a 9 mm sheared callus ridge on his right palm, and marks a three-stroke pencil asterisk beside his name in her fifth buckram ledger.
The Asterisk is out now on Amazon.co.uk in Kindle digital edition (£3.99, ASIN B0HP44G69W) and a 247-page trade paperback edition (£9.99, ASIN B0HP83QF85, ISBN 979-8164378448). Kindle Unlimited subscribers can read the complete novel free of charge.
Yes. You can read the complete, unabridged Chapter One (The Hands of Harold Phipps) and Edith Vane's verbatim 6 July intake ledger entry free on this website at spangomoletsi.com/first-chapter, with no sign-up required.
The Edith Vane Mysteries are quiet, observant British village crime novels rooted in physical clues, careful measurement, and rural community secrets rather than graphic violence or police-procedural cliches. Readers who enjoy fair-play deduction, classic Golden Age structure, and atmospheric English settings will feel at home in Nether Marlow.
Alongside the Edith Vane Mysteries (starting with The Asterisk, with Book 2 in preparation), Spango Moletsi writes The Charteris Effect (high-stakes supernatural suspense, beginning with Second Death) and The Curious Voyager Adventures for younger readers (beginning with The Lost Voyager).
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