It doesn't take a lot to be the belle of the expat community in Leopoldville, a flyspeck in the Belgian Congo: A pulse and a pair of pumps will do the trick. Liliane Morelli brought rather more than that to the party, but it didn't help: She's still dead of what the doctor calls blackwater fever though any idiot could tell you that mosquitoes were not to blame. One way or another, Liliane was just a little too fatale for her own good. Enter Dr. Mary Finney, the Miss Marple of the missionary brigade. She doesn't do a lot of praying – or a lot of doctoring, come to that – but her sleuthing skills are top-notch. Peering and poking, sticking her sunburned nose where it doesn't belong, she soon discovers the sad truth: Lots of people wanted Liliane. But nobody seems to have liked her much. Originally published in 1950.

World War II is over but Hooper Taliaferro is still in Africa, typing up Uncle Sam's loose ends. The latest end is in Cabinda, a tiny Portuguese colony with gaily painted buildings and a history of slave-trading. Hoop should have a pleasant stay at the home of the local administrator - the beer, after all, is cold, and the women beautiful - but the other guests are an unpleasant mix of hangers-on, including a shady lawyer and an overly chummy Brit on constant look-out for a loan. When one of them is murdered, Hoop calls in Dr. Mary Finney, the Miss Marple of the tropics. As usual, Hoop is a bit fuzzy on the details, but the formidable Dr. Finney has both stellar sleuthing skills and a .45 in her "necessaries bag." Both will come in handy if she's to sort through the tangled threads of the Cabinda Affair.

Paris, at the height of its post-War chic. It's a far cry from the dusty African backwaters that Hoop Taliaferro has been calling home, but with his easy American charm and those lovely American dollars, he fits in anywhere. He especially fits in at the Flea Club, a naughty nightclub for people who have pretty tame ideas of naughty. The real draw at the Flea is Nicole, a third-rate chanteuse singing sad songs for the bored expats holding up the bar. When someone silences the music, it falls to Hoop to put things right. Sleuthing's not really his line – he runs more to clever quips and nicely ironed khakis – but he is saved by the timely arrival of the redoubtable Mary Finney, stomping through the City of Light in her pith helmet, safari jacket, and sensible shoes.

World War II is raging, but in this dusty backwater of the Belgian Congo, the biggest problem is finding a cold beer. That's the case, at least, for Hooper Taliaferro, a U.S. government gofer sent to Africa on a vague errand related to the war effort. What he finds at the failing Congo-Ruizi plantation won't help the Allies much. Like colonialism itself, the owner is dying of a slow poison, and neither his staff nor his sluttish wife can muster the energy to care. But along with Hooper arrives Dr. Mary Finney, a formidable missionary with both moral outrage and sleuthing skills to spare. The Devil in the Bush introduces Dr. Finney as a sort of blunt-spoken Yankee Miss Marple, with likable, lightweight Hooper as her faithful scribe.