George Baxt: The Bette Davis Murder Case (USA 1994)

From the Publisher:
"My specialité. A body in the library."
So exclaims Agatha Mallowan, better known as Agatha Christie, to her neighbor Bette Davis at the discovery of the corpse of famous archaeologist (and notorious egoist) Virgil Wynn. Bette has rented Virgil's museum-like mansion in London for a few months of relaxation while her Hollywood lawyers renegotiate her contract, but instead of peace and quiet, she gets embroiled in murder.

Bette stumbles headlong into the bitter - and now deadly - Wynn family feud, complete with a cast of characters only George Baxt could create. Mabel, the domineering mother, still interferes although she's been dead for years, as her husband, Sir Roland, knows only too well: Perhaps he has taken Virgil's success as an archaeologist and as Mabel's favorite too personally. Virgil's siblings, Anthea, an unbalanced spinster who writes truly blank verse, and Oscar, who has dedicated himself to cacophonous musical compositions that will never see publication, have begrudged Virgil everything from his lion's share of their mother's attention to his wealth, which was their sole support.

Where are Bette and Agatha to turn for the solution to a mystery already too close to home? Toss into the mix an overly devoted maid, a beguiling medium whose seances are to die for, a curse from the tomb of an Egyptian queen, a flirtatious police inspector, and a pinel of arsenic - not to mention a host of dead bodies both new and mummified. Only the grand dame of mystery and the sultry starlet of the silver screen could solve the case!

George Baxt: The Bette Davis Murder Case. A Novel. St. Martin's Press, ISBN: 0312109393 (August, 1994), 200 p., $18.95.