Green Rust (Version 2)

A millionaire dies in the first chapter. That's how Edgar Wallace operated in 1919, when he published three books and cemented his reputation as the master of the breathless plot. John Millinborn, a dying American with a fortune large enough to kill for, is poisoned in his English country house with remarkable speed. He leaves everything to a niece he's never met: Oliva. Now she inherits not just wealth but danger, because someone in that house wanted him dead, and they may want her dead too. Wallace drops us into a world of suspicious doctors with uncertain nationalities, loyal friends with hidden motives, and a young woman walking blindly into an assassination that was meant for her uncle. The Green Rust is early Wallace at his most efficient: no wasted pages, no gentle introductions, just a body on page one and a race to find the killer before they finish the job.