Hetty Wainthropp Investigates

Hetty Waintthropp is annoyed at the cards celebrating her sixtieth birthday--they all offer her well wishes for ""joining the club"" of senior citizens and old-age pensioners, even though she's not entitled to a pension. Determined to make something of herself, Hetty gets a job at the local post office, where she proves her mettle quite quickly by throwing out a troublemaking biker and chasing down a shoplifter.

Helga Allowby, a self-described spinster, has been accused of sending noxious poison pen letters to the residents of her village and she wants Hetty to prove her innocence. Hoping to penetrate the mistrust that pervades the village, Hetty goes undercover as Tara Hall, a visiting painter. When Hetty turns up next on the mailing list, she suspects that Miss Allowby is guilty of bad penmanship.

When a teenage pyromaniac terrorizes a neighborhood, the police are helpless as frightened victims refuse to testify against him. Enter Hetty, posing as the Irish sister-in-law of one of the residents. Her plan: infiltrate the local sewing circle and get the lowdown on Lenny the firebug and his gang.

Missing gems and precious metals drive a mining community to madness as Hetty searches for buried treasure stashed by a miner killed in a cave-in. Hot on the trail of the lost loot, Geoffrey, too, is caught in an underground accident.