In the rough, tough world where predatory young beauty queens compete fiercely for money, a murder is committed. Police Constable Peter Lassington is soon enmeshed in a complicated mystery - a mystery made more than usually exotic by the acreage of young feminine flesh that is continuously on show at the Star Bowl ballroom, rehearsing for the contest at which the St. Valentine prizes will be awarded. Lassington's superior, the officer in charge of the case, is Superintendent Ironside. Ironside - polite, sophisticated, devious - is somewhat sceptical about the charms of the young ladies: his thoughts roam forward to his imminent retirement.
This detective novel is carefully plotted and firmly set in a world of bizarre values - values that do not appeal to Ironside, the most striking police detective to appear in fiction for some time. The naked competition of the adolescent beauty queens provides the background to a strange and exciting murder novel, with a surprise ending.
- ISBN10 1448200539
- ISBN13 9781448200535
- Publish Date 25 April 2013 (first published January 1968)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Imprint Bloomsbury Reader
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 244
- Language English