2017 mystery, fourth in its series. A "good" girl is found murdered in
her lodgings, and more deaths follow. DI Edgar Stephens, and his old
wartime colleague the magician Max Mephisto, investigate.
Max isn't much involved in the actual investigation this time; as
Griffiths tended to do in the Ruth Galloway books I've read, the
non-police characters get their own stories, which only overlap in
part.
But really the contemporary background detail is almost more
important; the major element emphasised this time is the tableaux
vivants, acts taking advantage of the English law that allowed nudity
or near-nudity on stage as long as the performers weren't moving, and
often with a tissue of historical reference as justification. Two of
the dead girl's housemates are performers in the act which is sharing
a programme with Max, and he gets involved with another of the
performers. Contemporary attitudes are well-represented, from the
unwelcoming to the enthusiastic.
As with the Ruth books, I feel that Griffiths really wants to write
long introspective stories about her characters, but she's stuck as a
crime writer so there have to be murders. Still, I do appreciate a
passing mention of a bend sinister (thank you, not a bar, which is
left-right symmetric and therefore can't be sinister).
Somewhat unusually for Griffiths, everyone ends up in a reasonably
happy place, though there are at the time of writing three more books
in the series.
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