It started as a student exercise, the knife under the drape, the model’s pose chalked in place. But before Agatha Troy, artist and instructor, returns to the class, the pose has been re-enacted in earnest: the model is dead, fixed for ever in one of the most dramatic poses Troy has ever seen.
It’s a difficult case for Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn. How can he believe that the woman he loves is a murderess? And yet no one can be above suspicion…
Traveling back from New Zealand to England the boat Inspector Alleyn is on docks at Suva, and just as they are leaving he wanders up to view the port for the last time only to come across a woman painting the scene, this is Agatha Troy and Alleyn is smitten (not so much so from Troy but you can't have everything!) Alleyn thinks after they dock in England that this will be the last he sees of the talented Miss Troy, until he gets called to her house in his capacity as a Police Detective! The painter's model (one Sonia Gluck) has been stabbed to death, the problem is that the method used is the self same that was postulated by the various art students staying at Troy's to learn from a Master.
Now Alleyn has to put all his hopes of winning Troy over aside and find out who killed the model (and he hopes - really hopes - that it isn't Troy herself.)
I enjoy the Inspector Alleyn books and this was a 7.5 out of 10 (edging towards an 8), always a fun re-read!
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