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Virginia Freer #5
I Met Murder
Whenever Felix, the light-fingered husband from whom Virginia Freer was semi-detached, reappeared in her life, it seemed murder did too. Even when temporarily incapacitated by an accident. Felix brought mystery with him. This time it concerned Holly, orphaned daughter of a famous actress, who had come to Rome to stay with Virginia's friends, the Brightwells. Holly disappeared, believed kidnapped, and distraught Ann Brightwell was prepared to sell her valuables to meet the ransom demand. Felix thought there was something odd about the kidnapping and was convinced the ransom shouldn't be paid. . .
- GenresMystery
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
About the author
Elizabeth Ferrars
92 books28 followersAka E.X. Ferrars.
Born Morna Doris McTaggart in Rangoon, Burma of a Scottish father and an Irish-German mother, she grew up in England where she moved at age six. She attended Bedales school and then took a diploma in journalism at London University.
Her first two novels, 'Turn Single' (1932) and 'Broken Music' (1934), came out under her own name, Morna McTaggart. In the early 1930s she married her first husband but she left him, moved to Belsize Park in London and lived with Dr Robert Brown, a lecturer in botany at Bedford College in 1942. She eventually divorced her first husband in October 1945 and married Dr, later Professor, Brown.
It was in 1940 that her first crime novel 'Give a Corpse a Bad Name' was published under the pseudonymn that she had adopted, Elizabeth (sometimes Elizabeth X. - particularly in the USA) Ferrars, the Ferrars her mother's maiden name. This novel featured her young detective Toby Dyke, who was to feature in four other of her novels.
When her husband was offered a post at Cornell University in the USA, the couple moved there but remained only a year before returning to Britain. They travelled with her husband's work, on one occasion visiting Adelaide when he was a visiting professor at the University of South Australia, and later moved to Edinburgh where her husband was appointed Regius Professor of Botany and they lived in the city until 1977 when, on her husband's retirement, they moved to Blewsbury in Oxfordshire where they lived until her sudden death in 1995.
She continued to write a crime novel almost every year and in 1953 she was a founding member of the Crime Writers' Association of which she later became chairperson in 1977.
As well as her short series of works featuring Toby Dyke, she wrote a series featuring retired botanist Andrew Basnett and another series featuring a semi-estranged married couple, Virginia and Felix Freer. All in all she wrote over seventy novels, her final one 'A Thief in the Night' being published posthumously.
Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor described her as having "a sound enough grasp of motives and human relations and a due regard for probability and technique, but whose people and plot are so standard".
Gerry Wolstenholme
November 2010
Born Morna Doris McTaggart in Rangoon, Burma of a Scottish father and an Irish-German mother, she grew up in England where she moved at age six. She attended Bedales school and then took a diploma in journalism at London University.
Her first two novels, 'Turn Single' (1932) and 'Broken Music' (1934), came out under her own name, Morna McTaggart. In the early 1930s she married her first husband but she left him, moved to Belsize Park in London and lived with Dr Robert Brown, a lecturer in botany at Bedford College in 1942. She eventually divorced her first husband in October 1945 and married Dr, later Professor, Brown.
It was in 1940 that her first crime novel 'Give a Corpse a Bad Name' was published under the pseudonymn that she had adopted, Elizabeth (sometimes Elizabeth X. - particularly in the USA) Ferrars, the Ferrars her mother's maiden name. This novel featured her young detective Toby Dyke, who was to feature in four other of her novels.
When her husband was offered a post at Cornell University in the USA, the couple moved there but remained only a year before returning to Britain. They travelled with her husband's work, on one occasion visiting Adelaide when he was a visiting professor at the University of South Australia, and later moved to Edinburgh where her husband was appointed Regius Professor of Botany and they lived in the city until 1977 when, on her husband's retirement, they moved to Blewsbury in Oxfordshire where they lived until her sudden death in 1995.
She continued to write a crime novel almost every year and in 1953 she was a founding member of the Crime Writers' Association of which she later became chairperson in 1977.
As well as her short series of works featuring Toby Dyke, she wrote a series featuring retired botanist Andrew Basnett and another series featuring a semi-estranged married couple, Virginia and Felix Freer. All in all she wrote over seventy novels, her final one 'A Thief in the Night' being published posthumously.
Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor described her as having "a sound enough grasp of motives and human relations and a due regard for probability and technique, but whose people and plot are so standard".
Gerry Wolstenholme
November 2010
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 5, 2013
Another charming book by Ferrars, this one featuring her part-time conman and detective Felix and his estranged wife, that nonetheless sometimes chills by showing what lies under the surface of nice, polite middle class people.
April 20, 2026
The orphaned daughter of a famous actress goes missing. Is it a ransom attempt? Is it murder? Does it have anything to do with that painting on the wall? (It's a Ferrars book, so the answer to that one is, yes, probably.)
This one clipped along well enough, but by book's end, it comes in as a lesser entry in the series. The supporting cast isn't as fun or intriguing as usual, and the resolution is a bit muted and muddled. Felix and Virginia's relationship remains pleasingly complex and zingy, although no real new ground is broken there either.
Ultimately: good, not great.
This one clipped along well enough, but by book's end, it comes in as a lesser entry in the series. The supporting cast isn't as fun or intriguing as usual, and the resolution is a bit muted and muddled. Felix and Virginia's relationship remains pleasingly complex and zingy, although no real new ground is broken there either.
Ultimately: good, not great.
February 22, 2021
This is the one where felix is hobbled up.
August 11, 2025
Enjoyed it. Not deep, and Virginia wasn't as annoying as she is in some of the earlier books ...
June 2, 2026
Felix Freer has turned up again at his wife's home this time with a broken leg. But what does he know of the new female guest in the home of the Brightwells.
An enjoyable mystery
An enjoyable mystery
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews