Swan Song

Hurrah! With the Nazis routed, the British can sing Wagner again. The company assembled in Oxford for the first post-war production of Meistersinger is delighted, but their happiness is soured by word that the odious Edwin Shorthouse will be singing a leading role. *Nearly everyone in the company has reason to loathe Shorthouse, but who could have had the fiendish ingenuity to kill him in his own locked dressing room? Answering that question will require a certain finesse, a certain je ne sais quoi, a certain eccentric professor of English Literature with a passion for amateur detecting. Happily, Gervase Fen is on the scene, fresh from his adventures in The Case of the Gilded Fly and Holy Disorders, with his sleuthing skills as sharp as his epigrams. A splendidly intricate and superior locked-room mystery - New York Times One of the last exponents of the classical English detective story . . . elegant, literate, and funny - The Times of London