What do you think?
Rate this book
A retrospective held in her honor brings silent film star Eve Sinclair, along with her life-long friend Trixie, to London, but when the young woman sharing their flat is murdered, Eve and Trixie become prime suspects
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
4 people are currently reading
145 people want to read
About the author
Marian Babson
62 books88 followersMarian Babson, a pseudonym for Ruth Stenstreem, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, but lived in London for the greater part of her life.
She worked as a librarian; managed a campaign headquarters; was a receptionist, secretary, and den mother to a firm of commercial artists; and was co-editor of a machine knitting magazine, despite the fact that she can’t knit, even with two needles.
A long sojourn as a temp sent her into the heart of business life all over London, working for architects, law firms, the British Museum, a Soho club, and even a visiting superstar.
She also served as secretary to the Crime Writers’ Association. She became a full-time writer whose many interests included theatre, cinema, art, cooking, travel, and, of course, cats, which feature in many of her mystery books. Her first published work was 'Cover-Up Story' in 1971 and 'Only the Cat' (2007) was her 44th novel.
The publisher's tagline for her style is "Murder Most British," a style reflected in each of her novels. Any violence is not graphically described and the sleuths are usually amateurs.
She re-used certain characters, such as the publicity firm Perkins & Tate, and a couple of ageing actresses, her books all stand-alone and can be read in any order.
Gerry Wolstenholme
September 2010
She worked as a librarian; managed a campaign headquarters; was a receptionist, secretary, and den mother to a firm of commercial artists; and was co-editor of a machine knitting magazine, despite the fact that she can’t knit, even with two needles.
A long sojourn as a temp sent her into the heart of business life all over London, working for architects, law firms, the British Museum, a Soho club, and even a visiting superstar.
She also served as secretary to the Crime Writers’ Association. She became a full-time writer whose many interests included theatre, cinema, art, cooking, travel, and, of course, cats, which feature in many of her mystery books. Her first published work was 'Cover-Up Story' in 1971 and 'Only the Cat' (2007) was her 44th novel.
The publisher's tagline for her style is "Murder Most British," a style reflected in each of her novels. Any violence is not graphically described and the sleuths are usually amateurs.
She re-used certain characters, such as the publicity firm Perkins & Tate, and a couple of ageing actresses, her books all stand-alone and can be read in any order.
Gerry Wolstenholme
September 2010
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 2, 2016
This is the first book in the Evangeline Sinclair and Trixie Dolan series. Evangeline and Trixie are two actresses who began in silent pictures and continued through the advent of the "talkies". Evangeline and Trixie are in London for a retrospective of Evangeline's films when one of their housemates becomes involved in a murder and they become accomplices after the fact.
The women look to solve the crime because, after all....they've had so much experience in their films...lol. The additional characters, Gwenda, Mick, Des, Martha etc all add color and fun to the story. The story is full of movie and movie star references.
This is a fun story with a couple of unexpected twists. I plan to read more of this series.
Rating: 4 stars
The women look to solve the crime because, after all....they've had so much experience in their films...lol. The additional characters, Gwenda, Mick, Des, Martha etc all add color and fun to the story. The story is full of movie and movie star references.
This is a fun story with a couple of unexpected twists. I plan to read more of this series.
Rating: 4 stars
June 9, 2012
This was the debut of a series that begun back in the latter 1980's. The characters are two older Ladies of the Silver Screen (silent films) era. They still keep their fingers in the business but parts are less frequent.
In this novel, Evangeline (Eve) and Trixie are invited to a film retrospective by Eve's former, and not much missed, co-star, Beauregard (Beau.) The retrospective is being held in a very foggy London.
The Ladies find that they must share their accommodations with current learning theatricals. And, what a cast they are. The first morning in London, Eve and Trixie startle a roomie, Mick as he is calmly (or not,) carrying a dead woman down the stairs.
The humor is spread throughout this book as the Ladies decide to solve this crime and more! At times you find yourself sympathizing with the police detective Heyhoe...or is it?
I was startled by the person who committed the crimes as I just didn't see it coming at all. It felt a bit too sudden to me. I didn't pick up on any clues so the ending felt abrupt to me. However, I will read the next in the series as there was a lot of entertainment for me in this book.
In this novel, Evangeline (Eve) and Trixie are invited to a film retrospective by Eve's former, and not much missed, co-star, Beauregard (Beau.) The retrospective is being held in a very foggy London.
The Ladies find that they must share their accommodations with current learning theatricals. And, what a cast they are. The first morning in London, Eve and Trixie startle a roomie, Mick as he is calmly (or not,) carrying a dead woman down the stairs.
The humor is spread throughout this book as the Ladies decide to solve this crime and more! At times you find yourself sympathizing with the police detective Heyhoe...or is it?
I was startled by the person who committed the crimes as I just didn't see it coming at all. It felt a bit too sudden to me. I didn't pick up on any clues so the ending felt abrupt to me. However, I will read the next in the series as there was a lot of entertainment for me in this book.
March 10, 2012
Once I realized Trixie had a backbone I sat back and enjoyed the story. The characters are so entertaining, the murders are secondary to the story. Will definitely read other titles in Babson's series.
November 15, 2022
Within the first chapter, I had my doubts when our two "elderly" actresses (one quickly confirmed to be 68) were referred to as "a bit over the usual age for hurtling ourselves around the world" (a normal commercial flight in the 1980s from the US to London). And then, in their lodgings, are awoken at 4:30am (London time) by the protagonist's gibbering middle-aged daughter who is absolutely distraught that her mother didn't call her to confirm she survived and wasn't killed mid-air. That settled, they return to bed and reawaken at the more reasonable hour of 10am.
At this point, I was ready to throw the book away. Jet lag existed in the 1980s; jet lag has existed for as long as humans have had the ability to very quickly travel from one point on the globe to the other (so, since the invention of air travel). There is a 7-hour time difference between California, where the actresses are from, and London. Yet at no point are they actually tired from their travel, much less does it acknowledge that the horror-of-horror-hours of interaction would be at a much more natural time for their internal clocks.
In fact, there's almost no mention of culture clash, cultural differences, or anything that would make use of the "Americans in another country" premise. Why wasn't this set in California? Why weren't the actresses old British film stars instead? It's a waste of a premise, and skipping over even small things (JET LAG!!!) that should have been mentioned in the things the author chose to write, but weren't, make this look like really lazy writing.
And that's what it is, of course. The writing as a whole is uninteresting and plodding. Things happen around the protagonists, but rarely to them, or involve them, until the very end. Almost all characters are unlikeable, and while I think part (but ONLY part) of that was intentional, most of it is bad writing. Evangeline Sinclair, aged mistress of the silver screen, is an opinionated and spoiled woman who I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why Trixie (our main character and fellow actress) puts up with her shenanigans--pouting when attention isn't on Evangeline, leaving events early and pulling Trixie along when she doesn't get the attention she deserves, making rude and sarcastic remarks.
Few other characters are better. Trixie's daughter Martha--she of the "you didn't call me to tell me you were alive even though you didn't promise me you'd make contact, and I'm so worried that instead of trying to call you in London again I've flown out and plan to stay for the entire time"--is a thoroughly unlikeable and useless character without two brain cells to rub together. She contributes nothing to the plot. Hugh, their driver, is a colorless, spineless pushover. the gaggle of struggling young actors who live in the building are interchangeably dull, save for Gwenda, the lone character who gets an actual personality (and her personality is "nice young woman," but at least it's a personality).
The mystery itself? Murder, as the name suggests, but...it happens away from the characters. They aren't intrepid detectives or anything like that, so things happen around them and then they talk about it, tediously. There will be no satisfaction here if you want a good mystery.
At this point, I was ready to throw the book away. Jet lag existed in the 1980s; jet lag has existed for as long as humans have had the ability to very quickly travel from one point on the globe to the other (so, since the invention of air travel). There is a 7-hour time difference between California, where the actresses are from, and London. Yet at no point are they actually tired from their travel, much less does it acknowledge that the horror-of-horror-hours of interaction would be at a much more natural time for their internal clocks.
In fact, there's almost no mention of culture clash, cultural differences, or anything that would make use of the "Americans in another country" premise. Why wasn't this set in California? Why weren't the actresses old British film stars instead? It's a waste of a premise, and skipping over even small things (JET LAG!!!) that should have been mentioned in the things the author chose to write, but weren't, make this look like really lazy writing.
And that's what it is, of course. The writing as a whole is uninteresting and plodding. Things happen around the protagonists, but rarely to them, or involve them, until the very end. Almost all characters are unlikeable, and while I think part (but ONLY part) of that was intentional, most of it is bad writing. Evangeline Sinclair, aged mistress of the silver screen, is an opinionated and spoiled woman who I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why Trixie (our main character and fellow actress) puts up with her shenanigans--pouting when attention isn't on Evangeline, leaving events early and pulling Trixie along when she doesn't get the attention she deserves, making rude and sarcastic remarks.
Few other characters are better. Trixie's daughter Martha--she of the "you didn't call me to tell me you were alive even though you didn't promise me you'd make contact, and I'm so worried that instead of trying to call you in London again I've flown out and plan to stay for the entire time"--is a thoroughly unlikeable and useless character without two brain cells to rub together. She contributes nothing to the plot. Hugh, their driver, is a colorless, spineless pushover. the gaggle of struggling young actors who live in the building are interchangeably dull, save for Gwenda, the lone character who gets an actual personality (and her personality is "nice young woman," but at least it's a personality).
The mystery itself? Murder, as the name suggests, but...it happens away from the characters. They aren't intrepid detectives or anything like that, so things happen around them and then they talk about it, tediously. There will be no satisfaction here if you want a good mystery.
September 10, 2018
I'm irked. It began well enough, but took a turn for the worse when characters behaved in an unexpectedly cavalier/nonplussed fashion after the first death. By the time I was 3/4 through I was weary of the constant griping and bitchery, the characters rang false, I wasn't sure if perhaps much of it were intended to be humorous (and if it were, it wasn't), and the so-called detectives (no one called them that, but we expect the viewpoint characters in this type of a novel to do some sleuthing, unless they're narrating the nearby sleuthing of others) did very little in this regard.
For the last 25 pages I was skimming just to get it done. Vita brevis est, sunt magis e libris est. (Life is short, there are better books out there).
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
For the last 25 pages I was skimming just to get it done. Vita brevis est, sunt magis e libris est. (Life is short, there are better books out there).
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
December 26, 2023
This was a lot of fun. Trixie and Evangeline are almost caricatures of aging early movie stars with the over-the-top personalities (well, one of them is big enough for two of them) and the drama. There's a lot of humor in that. But there is unexpected depth and a good mystery too.
October 27, 2018
This was a fun, light mystery and especially enjoyable if you happen to be a fan of old movies.
April 10, 2021
The book had a very interesting relationship between the MCs - can they really be called friends? Frenemies maybe (though I hate the term). :D Dated but still enjoyable mystery. Nice to have a horrible daughter for a change from the horrible mother trope. Looking forward to the next book.
September 17, 2022
4.0 Fun light read
December 24, 2015
I enjoy Marian Babson in general (the epitome of the English Cozy mystery genre), this one in particular cracks me up. Two aging film stars visiting England, where murder occurs. The references to old scandals in their careers, and the attempts to reinvent their reputations without losing publicity are just funny to read about. I particularly liked the "behind the scenes" memories of the real causes of their most famous scenes...
July 14, 2016
As a senior citizen myself, I have suddenly started reading mysteries featuring seniors. I loved the narrator's character but wanted to slap the "Star" silly. All in all it was a pretty good mystery with several funny moments and I have to say I was totally "off the track" with figuring out the murderer.
January 1, 2017
Read this out of order, this book is the first of the series and it is so much better than the other one. I lambasted it because it was slapstick comedy in a book. This was funny and amusing without going overboard and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
December 28, 2011
Nice storyline, kind of nostalgic about old timer Hollywood actresses in England. Characters and plot were well written. Recommend highly.
August 25, 2020
This book is so much fun to read, and to listen to if by audio. One can almost imagine these two aging stars in their adventure. Who would you cast to play them?
August 21, 2013
Shrill and with no likable characters. Two senior actresses "solve" a crime in London. A crime they were involved in "after the fact".
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews