The Temptress The Scandalous Life of Alice de Janze and the Mysterious Death of Lord Erroll

This is the fascinating life of femme fatale Alice de Janze, a book that "may well have solved the mystery of Lord Erroll's killing"(San Francisco Chronicle) the story at the center of James Fox'sWhite Mischief. A glamorous American multimillionairess, Alice de Janze scandalized 1920s Paris when she left her aristocratic French husband for an English loverwhom she later tried to kill in a failed murder-suicide. Abandoning Paris for the moneyed British colonial society known as Kenya's Happy Valley, she became the lover of womanizer Joss Hay, Lord Erroll. In 1941, Erroll was shot in his car on an isolated road. The crime remained unsolved. Paul Spicer, whose mother was a confidante of Alice's, uses personal letters and research to piece together what really happened that fateful evening. He brings to life an era of unimaginable wealth and indulgence, where jealousy and hidden passions brewed. At the heart of The Temptressis Alice, whose seductive charms no man could resist, and whose unfulfilled quest for love ended in her own suicide at age forty-two.

Paul Spicer was born in Kenya and educated at Eton College. He was a lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards, serving in Great Britain, Palestine, and Libya, as well as a managing director overseas of Shell International Petroleum.