A bit of a delicious throwback, in many senses of the word. For starters, we have a weekend house party, that hallmark of Golden Age crime-fiction, and apparently still going strong in 1970, when this book was first published. The party is in honor of a certain Lady Balaclava, herself something of a hallmark of the Golden Age, and still, yes, going strong. Well, at least until midway through the festivities, when she keels over, having apparently been poisoned. The most obvious suspects are her Ladyship's daughters and their (suspiciously foreign) husbands: Leave it to Henry Tibbett to head off to the Continent, there to check on the daughters' alibis and, once again, establish his bona fides as Scotland Yard's most peripatetic detective.… (more)