Louise Fuller, the esteemed actress, has decided to accept the offer of a lead role in a play for the BBC, The Schoolmistress, despite the fact that her co-lead will be the equally well-known Robert Strang. She knows Strang of old, having conducted an off-and-on again affair with him. Eventually she broke away from him – because he was an absolute b*st*rd – but the experience still haunts her, and she has never really managed to get over him.

The rehearsals start well, but tensions begin to rise – it is clear that Louise is not the only woman in his life, past or present, other than his wife. But when Strang is found dead, shot in the head, suspicion falls onto the cast and crew. It’s up to Inspector Cardiff to bring the killer to justice…

I received this book for Christmas, and I’m always game for looking at mystery novels by authors who I’ve never heard of. Well, in this case, someone who I had definitely heard of, but had no idea they had written fifteen or so mysteries. Gray was an actress with a  career spanning six decades, often appearing alongside her husband of fifty-nine years, Michael Denison. Mystery fans might be aware of their appearance in the film of The Franchise Affair. I’ve not seen it, but I imagine it’s better than the book. Wouldn’t be hard…

I digress. This is the fourth crime novel by Gray. I really have no idea whether Cardiff is in any of the others – he’s a bit of a cipher of a policeman, as the author is far more interested in the theatrical characters and their associates. We open primarily with Louise, as she reflects on her history with Strang and their reunion, but it expands to some of the others as well. Not all of them – while everyone has a motive for killing Strang, there are a couple of the characters who basically get a motive and not much else.

Gray clearly has experience of this setting and makes the most of her inside knowledge of the acting world to give some glamour to the setting. For anyone with a linguistic bent who has been tracking the historical use of the phrase “making love”, it seems by 1960 it has gained the current meaning (as opposed to the 1930s books which describe people making love in full view of witnesses, meaning something far less explicit… Having said that, there’s an interesting use of the phrase of the phrase “gayboy” to describe someone who sleeps with a lot of women…

Plotwise, it’s oddly paced. The circle of suspects is cut down for the reader to a small subset of the cast earlier than you would usually expect, and the final clue that pinpoints the murderer is awfully specific (although possibly accurate for the time) and wouldn’t work for the modern reader, although you’ll be pointing your finger in the right direction a fair few chapters before the reveal.

Is Dulcie Gray the next Brian Flynn? Not sure – the mystery is fairly traditional but not well clued. I won’t deny that it was a fun read, and should I come across another from her, I might well check it out.