Book description
Robert Amiss is persuaded by his friend Detective Sergeant Pooley of
the CID to take a job as a waiter in ffeatherstonehaugh's (pronounced
Fanshaw's), a gentlemen's club in St James', London. The club secretary
has allegedly jumped to his death from the gallery of this imposing
building. Against most of the evidence, Pooley believes he was murdered.
Amiss finds himself in a bizarre caricature of a club, run by and for
debauched geriatrics, with skeletons rattling in every cupboard. Why are
there so few members? How are they financed? Will Amiss keep his job
despite the enmity of the ferocious, snuff-covered Colonel Fagg? More
importantly, will he solve the crime before someone else dies? Dr Ruth
Dudley Edwards was born and brought up in Dublin, Ireland. Since she
graduated she has lived in England, where she has been a teacher, a
Cambridge postgraduate student, a marketing executive, a civil servant
and, finally, a freelance writer, journalist and broadcaster. An
historian and prize-winning biographer, her recent non-fiction includes
the authorized history of The Economist, a portrait of the British
Foreign Office and a book about the newspaper world of the mid-twentieth
century. She uses her knowledge of the British establishment in her
satirical crime novels: targets so far include the civil service,
gentlemen's clubs, Cambridge colleges, the House of Lords, the Church of
England, publishing, literary prizes and - always - political
correctness. She has three times been short-listed for awards from the
Crime Writers' Association. www. ruthdudleyedwards. com
