During a performance of Strauss' tone poem 'A Hero's Life', the obnoxious conductor Sir Noel Grampian is shot dead in full view of the Maningpool Municipal Orchestra. He had many enemies, musicians and music critics among them, but to be killed in mid flow suggests an act of the coldest calculation. Told through the letters of Detective Inspector Alan Hope to his wife as he puzzles over his findings, and other documents such as the letters of members of the orchestra and musical notation holding clues to the crime, this is an innovative and refreshing lost gem of the mystery genre. First published in 1941, the reader was promised an 'orchestral fantasy of detection' by the original subtitle - now the readers of today will have a new opportunity to enjoy this unusual and skilfully told classic.
