When Indigo Tea Shop owner Theodosia Browning is invited by Doreen Briggs, one of Charleston’s most prominent hostesses, to a “Rat Tea,” she is understandably intrigued. As servers dressed in rodent costumes and wearing white gloves offer elegant finger sandwiches and fine teas, Theo learns these parties date back to early twentieth-century Charleston, where the cream of society would sponsor so-called rat teas to promote city rodent control and better public health.
But this party goes from odd to chaotic when a fire starts at one of the tables and Doreen’s entrepreneur husband suddenly goes into convulsions and drops dead. Has his favorite orange pekoe tea been poisoned? Theo smells a rat.
The distraught Doreen soon engages Theo to pursue a discreet inquiry into who might have murdered her husband. As Theo and her tea sommelier review the guest list for suspects, they soon find themselves drawn into a dangerous game of cat and mouse...
Laura Childs is well and truly back at the top of her game with this book, Theodosia and Drayton have the honour of being guests at a tea function instead of being the brains and skill behind it, this tea though is somewhat strange, the serving staff are dressed in late 19th Century costumes (which isn't the strangest thing) and then each of them is also wearing a white velvet rat head! Everything seems to be going well until one of the servers knocks a candle over, Theodosia puts the fire out with tea but then things really take a turn for the worse as Beau Briggs, the husband of the hostess Doreen, keels over and dies. With poison being on his and everyones lips Theodosia and Drayton need to figure out who killed him as though he were a rat, and keep themselves from being next for the chop!
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