The black spectacles

A sinister case of deadly poisoned chocolates from Sodbury Cross’s high street shop haunts the group of friends and relatives assembled at Bellegarde, among the orchards of ‘peach-fancier’ Marcus Chesney. To prove a point about how the sweets could have been poisoned under the nose of the shopkeeper, Chesney stages an elaborate game to test whether any of his guests can see beyond their ‘black spectacles’; that is, to see the truth without assumptions. During the test, Chesney is murdered by his accomplice, dressed head to toe in an ‘invisible man’ disguise. The keen wits of Dr Gideon Fell are called for to crack this bizarre murder.