Death at the Opera

256 pp. Miss Clama Ferris was the most innocuous of murder victims. Indeed, playing the part of 'Katisha' in the school's production of The Mikado would have been one of her life's great adventures--if she had lived to step on stage. For by the curtain of Act One, someone had taken the fate of the timid Arithmetic Mistress into their own hands. Into the breach lurches Mrs. Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, pioneer psycho-analyst and reputed sleuth, an eyesore to all and sundry in her queer but expensive garments. The psychology of adolescents is one of her strong suits--and the teachers won't manage to hide much from her either. It is a most peculiar case, featuring blackmail in a Bognor boarding house, nudity in the Art Room and, strangest of all, an epidemic of drowning...