A Day for Dying: An Inspector Luke Thanet Mystery Hardcover – May 1, 1996 by Dorothy Simpson 
Book 13 of 15: The Inspector Thanet Mysteries
 
When playboy Max Jeopard is killed at his own engagement party, Inspector Luke Thanet is called in to investigate and uncovers a host of suspects, including his fiancee, a jealous brother, an ex-girlfriend, and the victim's future in-laws
 
From Publishers Weekly
In his 13th appearance, following No Laughing Matter, Inspector Luke Thanet has ample opportunity to display the sympathetic and acute investigative technique that has earned a Silver Dagger award for the author of this British series. Dead is Max Jeopard, a handsome, outwardly charming playboy and travel writer found floating in the swimming pool at his own engagement party. Among the family and guests at the impressive family home of his fiancee, Tess Sylvester, Thanet finds many with both motive and opportunity for murder. Among them are the victim's brother Hartley, who was Tess's former boyfriend, and Anthea Greenway, who was dropped by Max when he took up with Tess. There's Tess herself, whose relationship with Max was volatile; her parents, each with reason to lament the prospect of Max as a son-in-law; Tess's schizophrenic brother, who escaped the watch of his nurse at the same time Max disappeared; and Gerald Argent, the man whom Tess spurned for Max. Thanet's deft probing reveals an increasingly ugly portrait of the victim and uncovers more than one secret and more than one crime in the lives, loves and tangled loyalties of the suspects. This is a solid, if unexceptional, offering from Simpson.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
 
4.5