From Publishers Weekly
A nude beach on England's south coast, a tiny antique toy shop and a cavernous military tank museum are some of the locales in Steed's ( Clockwork ) fifth Peter Marklin mystery. Marklin, amateur sleuth and proprietor of the Toy Emporium, is truthful, kind and decent--an appealing hero despite his penchant for silly chatter. He walks his Siamese cat on a leash; refuses to cheat his customers; is faithful to his live-in lady, the ravishing Arabella; and doggedly pursues his detective work. Here he investigates the murder of a dour chap whose attic contained half a million pounds' worth of vintage toys. Though this should make for an absorbing tale, the effect is otherwise. The toy lore may be fascinating, but most of the characters are not well realized, the settings are colorless and the plot winds down like a toy tank with a broken spring.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Vintage-toy dealer Peter Marklin (Clockwork, 1989, etc.) again finds himself chasing a murderer when a good chum, the old reprobate Gus, asks him to prove that the voyeuristic Ron Ball, Inspector Digby Whetstone's most likely suspect, didn't kill Maurice Maitland and then badly batter his wife Mary: after all, on the night of the tragedy, Ron was hiding in their garden peeping at Mary in her nightie. As Peter and his pretty live-in Arabella snoop around, they discover that Maurice had a mistress, and Mary a lover--plus a new set of friends and a sudden interest in nudism. Did Mary engineer her husband's death in order to inherit his million-pound toy collection? Her best friend Chrissie can't believe it, and the true, sorry tale comes out only after a burglary at Peter's store, arson at the mistress's costume-shop, a horrific episode at a nearby tank museum, and a weepy (albeit gun- toting) confession. Reasonable clues, but forced repartee and contrived antique- toy chat make this far less engaging than the charming Tinplate or Die-Cast. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
