another great story with Ed and Max

I love this series and the vivid storytelling of theater life. All the characters are so good especially Max.

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Entertaining read.

A good story with solid dependable & consistently portrayed characters and a plot with the inevitable twist well worthy of four stars.

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Enjoyable

The case for DI Edgar Stephens this time is the murder of a young girl whose body was disturbingly posed by the killer post-mortem. Edgar realises the killer's manipulation of the body reminds him of an act which is currently on the same bill as his magician friend, Max Mephisto.

This ‘Living Tableau’ act is a group of women who strike historical poses while wearing next to nothing -- sort of a thinking man’s peep show. The girls keep completely still whilst striking their famous poses, thus getting around the censorship laws which deemed performers could only be naked on stage if they didn’t move. I assume this was really a thing and the group was based on some real life act. Fascinating stuff!

For anyone trying to solve the case, Griffiths has a plethora of potential victims and suspects with this performing trope, the fellow tenants of the boarding house where the victim was found, and the theatre's remaining cast and crew. It also brought in the connection to Max.

I felt this should have been enough but Griffiths pushed Max into a secondary plot for no particular reason. Instead of Max and the girls simply sharing the stage keeping him involved in the mystery plot, Griffiths also introduced a romance between him and one of the girls. This created a needless love triangle which made me a little sad, considering how sweet his romance from the previous book had been.

Griffiths loves her love triangles though! Much to my dismay, she continues on with the Edgar/Emma/Ruby one.

Emma’s role within the police ranks also continues to dismay me. I have decided it’s best for me to just suspend belief and keep reading as if it really was possible for a female detective with such seniority and responsibilities to exist in the 1950’s. If I do that, I find myself actually enjoying her character.

As in the previous installments, I once again enjoyed the insights into the magic tricks and behind the scenes of the stage shows. The book is full of fun facts about variety shows from the time and how they were struggling with the introduction of TV.

I loved the first book in this series but then was disappointed by the subsequent installments. Thinking now about all this one's flaws, I should say it was an average read but, somehow, I actually really enjoyed it, prompting my 4 out of 5 mark and vow to keep reading on with the series.

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