Brighton, 1965
When theatrical impresario Bert Billington is found dead in his retirement home, no one suspects foul play. But when the postmortem reveals that he was poisoned, suspicion falls on his wife, eccentric ex-Music Hall star Verity Malone.
Frustrated by the police response to Bert’s death and determined to prove her innocence, Verity calls in private detective duo Emma Holmes and Sam Collins. This is their first real case, but as luck would have it they have a friend on the inside: Max Mephisto is filming a remake of Dracula, starring Seth Billington, Bert’s son. But when they question Max, they feel he isn’t telling them the whole story.
Emma and Sam must vie with the police to untangle the case and bring the killer to justice. They’re sure the answers must lie in Bert’s dark past and in the glamorous, occasionally deadly, days of Music Hall. But the closer they get to the truth, the more danger they find themselves in…
The Midnight Hour is the sixth book in the DI Edgar Stephens and Max Mephisto series. Known as the ‘Magic Men’ they had been part of a top-secret espionage unit during the War. These books are historical crime fiction, beginning with The Zig Zag Girl set in 1950. Now, with The Midnight Hour, fifteen years have gone by and DI Stephens’ wife, Emma formerly a policewoman is now a private detective working with Sam (Samantha) Collins, formerly an investigative reporter.
There’s a lot going on as both Edgar’s team and Emma and Sam investigate Bert’s death, at first in competition and then they combine forces. Bert’s son Aaron thinks his mother, Verity, killed Bert, who has a very shady past, with plenty of affairs with other women. And there are other suspects with a motive to want him dead.
It provides an insight into what life was like in the mid 1960s, particularly for women. There was plenty of sexism, with, for example, married women being forced to retire from the police force. Married women were not allowed to drive panda cars, and were largely employed to make tea and do the paperwork. Women were expected to stay at home looking after the home and their children.
I enjoy the Dr. Ruth Galloway series, with the forensic archaeological details, despite wishing they weren’t written in the present tense. I also find the theatrical elements of this series fascinating and much prefer the fact that they are written in the past tense. I really liked the glimpses of Max and Seth Bellington, Bert’s son, filming a remake of Dracula in Whitby.
You can read this as a standalone as there is a guide to the main characters and their back stories at the end of the book, but it helps if you read at least some of the earlier books to have a sense of who everyone is and the character progression.
BooksPlease 