Book description
On Friday next, pub owner Jack Steadman would hang for the murder of
Alfie Goode, drunkard and ne'er-do-well. The case was open-and-shut to
everyone but Miss Harriet Unwin, who had less than a week to prove that
Jack, a Crimean war hero, was innocent. Her snooping soon took her to
the ballroom of a retired general's stately manor. But there, between
the quadrilles and waltzes, Miss Unwin had to step most carefully, for a
killer could make her next partner... death!
Bright as a new penny, and incredibly clever, Harriet Unwin has a knack
for criminal investigation. The most engaging young sleuth ever to snoop
upstairs and downstairs, Miss Unwin is also one of the most charming
creations of Britain's popular and prolific mystery writer, H. R.F.
Keating... Evelyn Hervey was the pseudonym of H. R. F. Keating used to
publish three novels with Weidenfeld in the mid-eighties.
Keating was born at St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, in 1926. He went to
Merchant Taylors, leaving early to work in the engineering department of
the BBC. After a period of service in the army, which he describes as
totally undistinguished , he went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he
became a scholar in modern languages. He was also the crime books
reviewer for The Times for fifteen years. His first novel about
Inspector Ghote, The Perfect Murder
, won the Gold Dagger of the Crime Writers Association and an Edgar
Allen Poe Special Award.
