"Lamia noticed that the glass in her hand was

trembling, and she put it down quickly on the

mantelshelf, a nasty Tudor affair in carved

stone. Her other hand tightly held an appro-

priately named clutch bag, in black satin with

a diamante trim. In it, she was carrying all a

woman could need at a party where she

hoped to meet her husband s girlfriend: com-

pact, mirror, comb, lipstick and gun."

So begins Susannah Stacey s wittiest and

most captivating mystery yet, featuring again

the wise Superintendent Robert Bone. The

party is one of rock idol Ken Cryer s standard

gatherings: musicians, dilettantes, and jet-set

hangers-on. So when he discovers the dead

body of one of his party guests propped up

and waiting for him in his luxurious four-poster

bed in a macabre parody of seduction, the

guest fist throws up a bewildering list of

potential murderers. Among them: Arch-

angel, a teenage rock heartthrob and his stat-

uesque Cherokee companion Mary High-

mountain; Sgtton Somerton, a neurotic and

highly successful architect; Noel Prestbury,

obsessive in his fervor for Catholic artifacts

and their proper uses; Monro Walsh, a tac-

iturn Scots doctor with a fiercely puritan

streak; and a host of dubious fast-track

sycophants.

Superintendent Bone sets about his inves-

tigation with the inscrutable professionalism

for which he is renowned. And a gradual thaw