My thanks to the Bellairs estate for an advance review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed it but not as much as some of the other Littlejohn mysteries, which are funnier with fewer tiresomely stereotypical episodes. Still, this is a mild mannered melodrama from the classical age of mysteries and it is a product of its age. The story is well plotted and the clues are there to spot, although the ending was a surprise to me as well as Littlejohn, it appears.

Unusually, we find Littlejohn on the French Riviera on holiday with his wife when an excruciatingly English coach party staying nearby summon his assistance on the fatal stabbing of one of their number, a coal merchant alderman and the ex mayor of Bolchester. Littlejohn, however, must work to French police direction. This is a story first published not long after the war, so there are possible motives stemming from the unfortunate alderman’s war record with the guerilla maquis resistance, but, as Littlejohn discovers back in Bolchester without its holiday makers, there are many motives for others too. One murder leads to another - the town’s casino owner - and then another, before the melodramatic end game.

I enjoyed the descriptions of the French coastal resort and the contrast of it with the small English town of Bolchester on the edge of the Pennines and Littlejohn’s police helper there, the solidly English plod, Haddock, who knows everything about everybody in his town. The characters in the casino and the scene of the small time crooks and relatives who gather for the owner’s funeral are memorable.

The story is a bit slow by modern standards although the body count approaches a massacre by the end. The book is not quite a classic but it is a good entertainment.