Publisher's Weekly Review
In Cleverly's fine seventh 1920s historical to feature Scotland Yard's Joe Sandilands (after 2007's Tug of War), the engaging sleuth refuses to believe his old friend and mentor, Sir George Jardine, stuck a knife in Sir Stanley Somerton, Jardine's former fellow soldier with an unsavory reputation, after a chance encounter at a Paris theater. Sandilands, aided by a French detective he worked with on an earlier case, Insp. Jean-Philippe Bonnefoye, pursues the real killer. The pair get a major break when Dr. Moulin, the pathologist assigned to the Paris morgue, suggests Somerton's killing was carried out at the direction of a master criminal responsible for a number of bizarre high-profile murders over the previous four years. While the payoff is a little too predictable and the solution doesn't match the setup as well as it might, Cleverly still manages to craft a puzzling whodunit. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The first act of this new episode in Cleverly's Jazz Age series starring Scotland Yard's Joe Sandilands begins with a crowd of ghoulish onlookers watching blood drip from a sarcophagus in the Louvre; it then moves ahead in time to an airport tarmac, where a blustery, somewhat fearful Commander Sandilands boards a passenger plane an Argosy (four wings, three engines, two pilots and 13 passengers) bound for a Paris Interpol convention. Meanwhile, in Paris, the plan of another gruesome murder is taking form. Is there a connection? When Sir George Jardine, a retired diplomat and Joe's mentor, is accused of nearly decapitating his enemy at a Paris music hall, and the bullheaded Commissaire Fournier of the French gendarmerie holds him in cruel custody, Sandilands subtly takes charge of the investigation. Cameo appearances by journalist Georges Simenon and entertainer Josephine Baker, along with a cast of believably developed supporting characters, build a steady crescendo of motive and opportunity until the surprising denouement reveals a troubling discordant element lurking in the very heart of the Parisian criminal justice system. This series and its hero age well: the perspicacious Sandilands exhibits an arresting combination of Mary Russell's discernment and Chief Inspector Wexford's tenacious certainty.--Baker, Jen Copyright 2008 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Another wily escape for the deadlier of the species. Uninvited, lovely Alice Conyers joins retired diplomat Sir George Jardine, who recognizes her from Ragtime in Simla (2003), to watch Josephine Baker perform at the Thâtre des Champs-Élyses. When she foils his plan to have her arrested by skittering away during the finale, he notices that another old nemesis, Sir Stanley Somerton, has slumped precariously in his seat in the opposite box. When Sir George hastens to him, Somerton topples over, his throat slit. Unfortunately, an usherette assumes that Sir George was the murderer, and he remains in custody until Commander Joe Sandilands of the Yard, in Paris for an Interpol conference, and his Parisian counterpart Inspector Bonnefoye release him. When M. Moulin, the pathologist, suggests that four other murders over the past five years have similar earmarks, Sandilands, Bonnefoye and Sir George's young cousin Jack Pollack fear for Sir George's safety. There'll be more stiletto trauma and several unexpected plot twists before Sandilands--with help from Georges Simenon, a newsman much enthralled by Miss Baker--detects the mastermind behind the flamboyant murder spree and, alas, sees Alice skitter away again. Miss Baker in her banana G-string, Simenon puffing on his pipe--Cleverly brings 1927 into sharp focus, while Sandilands outwits Parisian bureaucracy, apache wannabes and lovely Alice. If the denouement is a mite implausible, the dash up to it is mighty fine. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
In 1926 Paris, Joe Sandilands sets out to solve a Folies Bergere music hall murder. The seventh in the series from Crime Writers Association Historical Dagger winner Cleverly, who hails from the UK. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
