Hodgkiss and the Mobile Phones / Hodgkiss and the Twelve Jurors / Hodgkiss and the Vanishing Waiter.
Hodgkiss can't resist a challenge. When he receives a threatening message on his mobile phone, although it is a wrong number, he sets out to track down the caller in spite of his daughter, Esme's, misgivings. When it turns out the call was from an employee of the terminally compromised Kanundda Council he knows he must have stumbled on some form of corrupt behavior. Then he overhears other calls which, taken separately seem harmless enough, but soon they form a sinister pattern which results in Hodgkiss uncovering a murder and a devious plot to swindle council. After an evening out at an art show, Hodgkiss and his friend Pat Strong return to Pat's town house to discover it has been burgled, but apparently nothing is missing. Then the complications begin, involving some very incompetent burglars who had misunderstood the last words of a convicted murderer. Kanundda Council plans to form a sister city relationship with Havana, Cuba. But of course, the whole arrangement is just another scam, which comes unstuck when the representative of Havana is poisoned at the official dinner to mark the occasion. Hodgkiss' son-in-law, Detective Sergeant Donald Burke, is called in to investigate and the last thing Donald wants is his father-in-law interfering in his inquiry. But Hodgkiss' special knowledge of the skullduggery that is behind all of council's decisions enables him to demonstrate motive, means and opportunity in this most ingenious murder plot.
Hodgkiss at his most imaginative, observant and obnoxious.
