FIRST BOOKS: Madame Will Not Dine Tonight - Hillary Waugh

THE STORY: Valerie King is having a dinner party. She's invited eight guests, among them Sheridan Keith Wesley, a private detective. Included in Wesley's invitation is a $100 retainer. He's being hired to attend the party...and do what, he wonders? When he arrives he discovers a motley group of people none of whom claim to know one another. But although all the guests showed up, their hostess did not. Wesley and his wife Diane decide to do a tour of the grounds and they find Valerie's naked body in a remote forested area, her clothing torn and shredded all around her. She has been brutally stabbed and is very dead.THE CHARACTERS: Madame Will Not Dine Tonight (1947) ultimately is the story of a blackmailer. This is no real spoiler for it's discovered rather quickly that Valerie King gathered all her guests at the dinner party to reveal all their secrets. Shortly after the discovery of Valerie's body Wesley and the police open up a safe in her study and find all sorts of thing one…