Hanged for a Sheep by Francis and Richard Lockridge

Aunt Flora had called Pam North for help because Aunt Flora believed that someone was trying to poison her with arsenic.  Jerry North was now in Texas reading a book for his publishing house, so Pam packed up her luggage and her two cats and went for a stay with Aunt Flora.

Aunt Flora was quite an eccentric character. She was getting along in years now, but she had been married four times. Currently she was seeking a separation from her fourth husband, Stephen Anthony, and  she had thrown him out of her house. Aunt Flora still maintained good relations with her children and grandchildren. There was her son, Alden Buddie, who was the product of her first husband, Alden Buddie. This son had two daughters, Clem and Judy. She also had a son Wesley Buddie, and he was the father of Christopher Buddie. Then she married Robert McClelland who had a son named Something or Other McClelland (Pam couldn't remember his name) and they had a son named Bruce McClelland who was a newspaper reporter. Her third husband was a man named Craig and they had had one son, Benjamin who was a very staid banker and who still lived with Aunt Flora. Aunt Flora had a house full of sons and grandchildren along with Harry Perkins who had been a friend of her first husband and who now lived in a room at the top of the house, and did odd jobs about the house.

Aunt Flora explained to Pam the reasons why she thought she had been poisoned though she could not see the reason. Aunt Flora did have a lot of money, but she had written a very fair will which  distributed her money evenly and which did not give an extreme benefit to any one person.

Then one morning, Pam came to breakfast and discovered the body Stephen Anthony in the breakfast room. She called her friend Lieutenant Bill Weigand who started the investigation. He interrogated  all of the members of the family, and he and Pam tried to discover a link between the murder and the attempted poisoning. There would be another murder which would involve Pam in a very scary manner, and at last Jerry North would return home to help in finding the solution to the crimes.

I have always liked Pam and Jerry North because they are nice people with a good sense of humor.. The mysteries are always well written and are not too blood spattered.  This book was written in 1942.