“A very neat version of the ‘sealed room’ mystery ... provides [Miss Brand] with excellent opportunities to indulge her sense of character and her pleasantly malicious wit, as well as her gift for posing an ingenious problem.” – Times Literary Supplement, 1949 At Elysian Hall, a grand exhibition space in post-War London, a cast has been assembled for a medieval-themed pageant show replete with knights in coloured armour, real horses and a damsel in a rickety tower on high. With death threats discovered by members of the troupe before the show, the worst comes to pass when the leading lady is thrown from the tower before the eyes of the audience by an unknown assailant – with all doors backstage also under observation. Faced with a seemingly impossible case, the wizened Inspector Cockrill and the fresh-faced Inspector Charlesworth begrudgingly join forces to uncover the killer hiding in plain sight. First published in Britain in 1949, Brand’s exuberant novel is still regarded as one of the great masterpieces of the classic mystery genre for its fiendishly constructed puzzle, memorable setting, dumbfounding acts of misdirection and thrilling denouement.

Christianna Brand was the pseudonym of Mary Christianna Milne (1907-1988), a British crime writer who was born in British Malaya. She is best known for her novels featuring series detective Inspector Cockrill, though she also wrote several acclaimed short story collections and the Nurse Matilda series of books for children. Her 1944 classic Green for Danger was also published in this series in 2022.