The Tomb of the Honey Bee: A Posie Parker Mystery (The Posie Parker Mystery Series) (Volume 2) byL.B. Hathaway, Paperback (Whitehaven Man Press London)

Posie Parker accepts a new case - find Alaric Boynton-Dale, explorer. Famously good looking, daring, piloting planes, and very private. His younger sister Lady Violet comes to Posie looking for help - she is afraid for Alaric's life, strange things have happened, his plane has been tampered with and he barely escaped a serious crash landing, his bee hives have been set on fire and he almost died of poisonous fumes. Now Alaric is gone, his dog Bikram is left behind and the normally fastidiously clean cottage he stays in has been ransacked. Posie travels to the family seat in Oxfordshire where she makes the acquaintance of a mystery-writing relative, Alaric's brother and American sister-in-law, a shady butler, Alaric's pilot friend and his wife - she used to be Alaric's mistress until very recently. 

Lady Violet serves her famous honey cake, the one featured in women's magazines. Posie surveys the scene as guest and following another murder, the scene shifts back to London, then the French Riviera, Sicily and honey gathering monks, Egypt and tomb excavating friends. More murders along the way. There is a family gathering where everything is revealed and explained and then Posie's situation gets even better. It was easy to read, but I was startled several times by carelessness of the author - really, Alaric used a jet before it was invented? The father-in-law sold "ploughshares somewhere east of Texas" and expected A/C in a country house in England? And telegraph messages that went on and on and used real, long sentences ....