It’s 1929, and Ticky Maltravers is the toast of London high society, adored by everyone—or so it seems, until somebody poisons him over dinner. Now it turns out that numerous people with secrets to hide had every reason to wish him dead. But which of them murdered him? For Freddy Pilkington-Soames, newspaper reporter and man-about-town, the question hits a little too close to home, thanks to an … an unfortunate drunken encounter with Ticky’s corpse which he’d much rather the police didn’t find out about—and thanks also to his exasperating mother Cynthia’s seeming determination to get herself arrested by tampering with the evidence. But a pretty girl with big blue eyes is demanding his help in solving the mystery, so what can he do but agree? Now all he has to do is hide the wrong clues, find the right ones, and unmask the murderer before the police discover what’s really been going on. That ought to be easy enough. If only people didn’t keep getting killed…
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Typical Golden Age Mystery, quite entertaining!
Good period English murder mystery.
Entertaining and funny British cozy mystery.
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Historical fiction.
Good read. Funny. Written from a crazy, but entertaining point of view.
Freddie’s mother was a real pill.
Love mysteries but no reason to even like the characters in this story – too shallow and trite. I found myself pushing to read on to the next page.
I appreciate the thought put into this book. One might call the characters ‘derivative’ (Freddy reminds me more of Freddy Arbuthnot than of Lord Peter; Ticky reminds me of Twemlow, although Twemlow is no blackmailer), but there is a certain devil-may-care feeling about the book that makes it pleasant to read. I was surprised to discover that Ms. Benson also writes the Angela Marchmont series. Prolific!
This book held my interest from beginning to end, the writing was clear and enjoyable, and the twist at the end fit seamlessly with the entire story. I would definitely recommend this to any Historic mystery enthusiasts.
Page turner with laughs even though it was a murder! Couldn’t put it down. Loved the witty characters along with the completing plot. Must read if you like mystery on the lighter side.
Not as good as her Angela Marchmont books.
pleasant and somewhat amusing; in the category of “beach book” or “airplane book”.
it is a great combination, funny, unpredictable and with a crime to solve
A funny murder mystery, with interesting high society characters, all who have skeletons in their closets for which they are being blackmailed.
A typical who done it book. The ending was surprising.
Very superficial in dealing with the characters.
So so
Too long, went on and on unnecessarily.
It was a fun, easy read. I think it would have been better if the reader was able to come to know more about the lady responsible for the murders before the big reveal in the last couple of chapters. When reading “who-done-its” I often try to figure out the responsible party as I’m reading. Because most of the info about the murderess was kept until near the end of the book, how would the reader be able to make any informed guesses?