Dance of Death by Edward Marston
In the small hours of the morning, Simon Wilder slips out of a house and walks jauntily in the direction of his home. It takes him a few seconds to realise that a Zeppelin raid is taking place and that several people have come out of their houses to look up at the sky. Hearing the drone overhead, Wilder gazes upwards. When a Zeppelin suddenly bursts into flame, shot down by a British plane, there is a concerted cheer then people break into patriotic song.
Wilder is unable to join in because he has been stabbed to death.
Assigned to the case, Marmion and Keedy learn that Wilder is a brilliant dancer who ran a well-attended Dance Studio. Women formed the majority of those who had private lessons from him so jealous husbands are potential suspects. There are many others.
Wilder seems to have had a gift for creating enemies. The detectives have to trawl through a large number of them – and face grave danger in the process – before they can begin to track down the killer, and they are hampered at every stage by severe friction on the domestic front. The dance of death proves to be a hazardous one.
The fifth book in the Home Front Detective series confronts Inspector Harvey Marmion and Sergeant Joe Keedy with their most baffling case.
