E. X. FERRARS – Last Will and Testament. Virginia & Felix Freer #1. Collins, UK, hardcover, 1978. Doubleday, US, hardcover, 1978. Bantam, US, paperback, 1981. Felony & Mayhem Press, US, softcover, 2021.

   Virginia Freer has returned home after a long night at the bedside of her dying friend Mrs. Arliss, who passed with a stroke hours earlier, and who should she find stretched out on her sofa but her charming ex Felix who let himself into the house worried because Virginia was out of place.

   Virginia long ago saw through Felix and while not divorcing him has removed herself from his charming but inevitably criminous lifestyle (his latest scheme a racket involving selling dubious automobiles).

   
   Virginia only wants a bath and food and for Felix to go away. She has had a long night and has some unpleasant phone calls to make to Mrs. Arliss surviving relatives. It’s all a bit tiresome, but Felix does make good coffee, and comes bearing an unwelcome gift, that this time he seems to have bought and not pilfered.

   Virginia has a wary eye for Felix. She has her own money, comfortable but not wealthy, a home in the village where she grew up, and a career at a nearby clinic as a physiologist.

   Felix showing up just seems a minor annoyance, but whenever Felix is around… And sure enough it turns out the late Mrs. Arliss much coveted estate is gone and no one is inheriting anything. Felix is still hanging around preparing a meal for her when Virginia returns with Meg Randall, Mrs. Arliss companion who just revealed her employers money is gone, gambled or hidden away.

   Then during the funeral some valuable minatures go missing from the Arliss home and Virginia starts wondering why Felix showed up to see her in the first place at just that moment. Even if he didn’t take them, is he involved? It looks bad because he not only knows Mrs. Arliss’s former servants the Bodwells, they are at his flat in London when Virginia shows up there.

   Well, he’s Felix, of course he’s involved… Isn’t he?

   
   Elizabeth Ferrars whose editor suggested the E. X. pseudonym was a successful mystery writer whose novels were mostly non series mysteries in the classical mode though she had several series characters including Toby Dyke, and with Andrew Bassett, and the Freers late in her career. Her mysteries tend to be fast moving, smart, and well plotted with attractive characters and well plotted solutions. Her heroines tend to be intelligent and self sufficient and she downplays violence and bloodshed in favor of plot and wit.

   1978’s Last Will and Testament was the first Freers novel and a lively introduction to the two charming protagonists.

   Things take a darker turn when the miniatures are returned and one of the heirs in murdered. When the Bodwells are murdered too Felix decides to intervene and from there on it’s a straight murder mystery, just complex enough to keep things interesting and with more than enough charm and wit with Ferrar’s easy unobtrusive but slick style keeping us guessing and the action neatly moving until the crime is solved and Felix almost the hero of the day.

   The Freers continued to adventure in much the same manner from 1978 to 1992 in a series of light and well written adventures that managed to be quite modern while still echoing some of the fun of an earlier time. This was my first time encountering the pair, but I can assure you I will spend more time with Virginia and Felix, though in Felix’s case I may check my wallet afterward.