When Edwin Shorthuse was found hanged in his dressing-room, there were plenty of suspects. Shorthouse had been the most unpopular singer in the show- vain, jealous, un-coperative.
His c-star, Elizabeth hated him. Her husband, resented the singers attention to his wife. Peacock the musical director, feared his terrible temperament. Joan Davis knew too much of his past and the young lovers, Judith and Boris, were bitter about the shadow he threw over their happiness. Then another member of the cast dies a horrifying death. The search for the killer, led by Gervase Fen, professor of English language and Literature at oxford University and amateur detective, leads to only one name- Edwin Shorthouse, a week old corpse.
This has its moments with a couple of quirky characters which give a few laughs but generally it's a weak Crispin. It has one of the most ridiculous killings in the history of the genre. In a genre of impossible killings this wins with daylight second, an impossible murder.
Put this at the bottom of the "to be read stack".
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