A cold-blooded killer stalks a sleepy Suffolk town in this pitch-perfect WWII crime mystery.

December 1939. Sackwater Police Station feels a million miles from the war effort. Elderly Mr Orchard keeps wandering off in his pyjamas, little Sylvia Satin is having a birthday party, and a bookmark has been reported stolen. Inspector Betty Church – one of the few female officers on the force – is longing for something to get her teeth into...

When a bomb is dropped on Sackwater, it seems the war has finally reached them. But Betty can't stop Adolf, however hard she tries. So when a dead man is found on the beach, she concentrates on hunting an enemy much closer to home.

'Eccentric and entertaining with a nicely complex plot'Crime Review.

'A wonderfully gripping old-fashioned murder mystery' The Lady.

I love this sort of book... A rival for M.C. Beaton, my favourite of all time' * Frost Magazine *
A clever and beautifully written tale of small-town wartime life with a good mystery – and a most unusual solution... The Room of the Dead is funny, amusing and surprising, and it will keep you guessing at a darker and more unnerving story' * Crime Review *

M.R.C. Kasasian was raised in Lancashire. He has had careers as varied as a factory hand, wine waiter, veterinary assistant, fairground worker and dentist. He is the author of the much loved Gower Street Detective series, five books featuring personal detective Sidney Grice and his ward March Middleton, as well as another Betty Church mystery, Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire. He lives with his wife, in Suffolk in the summer and in Malta in the winter.