βCleverly told ... brilliant character work and plotting up to the usual Symons standardβ β Observer Lady Wainwright presides over the gothic gloom at Belting, in mourning for her two sons lost in the Second World War. Long afterwards a stranger arrives at Belting, claiming to be the missing Da
Quick Curtain (British Library Crime Classics)
β Scribed by Melville, Alan
- Book ID
- 109182364
- Publisher
- British Library Publishing Division
- Year
- 2015
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 172 KB
- Series
- British Library Crime Classics
- Category
- Fiction
- ISBN-13
- 9780712357890
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
β¦ Synopsis
Overview: Quick Curtain is a witty detective story, originally published in 1934. It is one among many books that enjoyed brief popularity during the "Golden Age of murder" between the two world wars but subsequently fell out of sight. The author, Alan Melville, was a successful playwright and man of the theatre, and he uses his knowledge of backstage life to good effect in this breezy whodunit.The slender plot revolves around the shooting of the leading man, but when the show opens at the Grosvenor Theatre to a packed house, Brandon Baker is killed by a real bullet. When another member of the company is found dead, initial appearances suggest a straightforward case of murder followed by suicide. But there is, of course, more to it than that. The audience includes Inspector Wilson of Scotland Yard and his son, an enthusiastic young reporter, making an amusing variant on the Holmes-Watson pairing of sleuth and sidekick!The British Library's revival of this book, offers a new generation a chance to appreciate the work of a writer with a genuine talent to amuse.
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