A murder mystery in which our hero attempts to unpick the suspicious death of his uncle, an unpleasant literary critic with a collection of compromising records of former lovers. There is a lot of psychology as he tries to decide whether or not the woman he is falling in love with is a murderer, and plays a complex game of duplicity with both her and Professor Mandrake, who has appointed himself as chief amateur sleuth. Some colour is added by the contemporary setting - the England of postwar rationing, where chocolate biscuits are at a premium and everyone tries to ingratiate themselves with the grocer in the hope of a few extra fish heads. Entertaining, but I hadn't the patience to follow all the twists and turns of the emotional narrative and just waited to see who the murderer was. MB 7-ix-2018 ( )