Sherwood Ltd

Book excerpt: Snarky, delicious fun! The Camilla Randall mysteries are a laugh-out-loud mashup of romantic comedy, crime fiction, and satire: Dorothy Parker meets Dorothy L. Sayers. Perennially down-and-out socialite Camilla Randall a.k.a "the Manners Doctor" is a magnet for murder, mayhem and Mr. Wrong, but she always solves the mystery in her quirky, but oh-so-polite way. Usually with more than a little help from her gay best friend, Plantagenet Smith. Sherwood Ltd. takes aim at the world of small press publishing and all things British. It's a madcap tale of intrigue, romance and murder set near the real Sherwood Forest in the English Midlands. After discovering a dead body near the dumpster where she's been diving for recyclables, down-on-her luck socialite Camilla Randall escapes to England, enticed by the charming Peter Sherwood—a self-styled Robin Hood who offers to publish a book of her etiquette columns at his unorthodox publishing company. But murder and disaster follow her. She lands in a gritty criminal world—far from the Merrie Old England she envisions. The staff are ex-cons and the books are seriously kinky. Hungry and penniless, Camilla camps in a Wendy House built from pallets of porn while battling an epic flood, a mendacious American Renaissance Faire wench, and the mysterious murderer who may be Peter himself. Sherwood Ltd. is the second in this humorous mystery series, but it can be read as a stand-alone. "Anne Allen is also masterful at keeping the plot twisting and turning; and making sure all those details make sense by the end." "It’s a laugh-out-loud funny modern take on the Robin Hood legend, set mainly in Lincolnshire, UK, and I found the local detail to be excellent." "It's an hilarious lampoon of crime fiction, publishing and the British in general. Anne Allen gets our Brit idioms and absurdities dead to rights."