When a pretty young main is bludgeoned to death in the Old Library of Buckingham Palace just a week before George V's Silver Jubilee, no one is free from suspicion except, perhaps, the King himself. T.E.B. Clarke, the noted British screenwriter, has crafted a masterful mystery that is both a gem of police procedure and a fascinating candid look at the problems of running a palace. Stewards, footmen, chambermaids and the highest peers of the realm all swell the intricate and amusing scene. But behind the regal trappings wriggle the worms of blackmail, sex and murder.

