London: Collins, (1981) dj. Hardcover first edition - Features Inspector McHale on his first murder case. "Lill Hodsden is a monster. She humiliates her husband, blackmails her lovers, browbeats her teen-aged daughter, and smothers her grown sons with a mother love that leaves them inwardly screaming for freedom. Vulgar and flashy herself, Lill has a way of zeroing in on everybody else's weaknesses and ridiculing them. She is just asking to be murdered." In fact, her sons had been planning to do that on the Saturday, but someone else got there first. A stand-alone novel published in U.S. as 'Death of a Perfect Mother.' 188 pp. ISBN: 0-00231589.