Alas Poor Father — Joan Fleming

Brigadier Basil Patricott, presently engaged on hush hush business for the foreign office, is a man able to cope with anything - except his two small motherless sons. As a result they run wild in the company of an eccentric Irish pigeon fancier, living with his sinister brother in a house of mysterious locked doors. Then one of the boys goes exploring, and what he sees behind those doors marks him down for immediate death. 'She has the gift of creating instantly credible characters' Sunday Times 'Twists and turns all over the place' Observer