A Dreadful Murder

A Dreadful Murder, like Chickenfeed, is a "quick read" based on a real, unsolved murder.  Someone shot Caroline Lugard in August, 1906.  Her husband, a dour retired Army officer, was both the last person to see her alive and was alone when he found her body.  An inconclusive inquest and Major-General Lugard's friendship with the local police chief launch the widower into a swamp of rumor and innuendo, from which two Scotland Yard investigators cannot withdraw him.  Brief and simply written (the quick reads series is written at a basic level, in part to get non-fluent readers interested in literature), A Dreadful Murder barely qualifies as a novella, but it's worth the small investment of your time.