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Death in High Heels

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( 351 ratings, 64 reviews)
Brief Description
'My dear Inspector, this is simply nonsense. Girls don't murder each other in respectable dress shops.'Life for the staff of the West End boutique Christophe et Cie is hard enough with all the pressures of delivering the ambitious Mr. Bevan's vision and then comes murder, a... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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The debut mystery novel by Queen of Crime Christianna Brand, published following the success of the Crime Classics editions of Green for Danger, Death of Jezebel and more.

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'My dear Inspector, this is simply nonsense. Girls don't murder each other in respectable dress shops.'

Life for the staff of the West End boutique Christophe et Cie is hard enough with all the pressures of delivering the ambitious Mr. Bevan's vision and then comes murder, a poisoning via the toxic crystals of hat-cleaner, pitching haute couture into heinous crime.

Faced with a fashionable collection of overwrought designers, buttoned-up models, downtrodden sales girls and tyrannical middle-managers, the dashing Inspector Charlesworth of Scotland Yard must disentangle workplace grudges from deadly motives before the killer can make a trend of murder. First published in 1941, Brand's debut mystery is brimming with the caustic wit, ingenious misdirection and ruthless twists that would later earn her a place among the queens of classic crime fiction.

'It is a very long time since I have read a better story. Oh yes, this is not only the book of the month, but the book of the year.' Raymond Postgate in Time and Tide, April 1941

'A bull's-eye! Miss Brand has succeeded not only with the puzzle (which is uncommonly good), but even more with the atmosphere.' Illustrated London News

'This new writer of mystery tales is welcome, for she has a cheerfully satiric manner... The reader is kept on tenterhooks until the end.' Daily Telegraph

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780712355247

Publisher: British Library Publishing

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 10 November 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: British Library Publishing

Illustration: Illustrations

Contributors:

  • Introduction by Martin Edwards

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 256

About the Author

Christianna Brand (19071988) was born in British Malaya and was one of the most celebrated crime writers of the twentieth century. She is best known for her mystery novels featuring Inspector Cockrill along with the Nurse Matilda books for children, which were adapted for screen as Nanny McPhee. The Cockrill novels Green for Danger, Death of Jezebel and Suddenly at His Residence have been published as British Library Crime Classics.

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  • Cat and Mouse
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  • Death of Jezebel
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  • Suddenly at His Residence
    Christianna Brand is not merely a purveyor of thrills or a maker of puzzles. She is a novelist. - The Daily Telegraph While the Blitz bombards London, the boisterous grandchildren of Sir Richard March have descended upon Swanswater Manor in Kent for a family gathering and the finalising of the patriarch's will. Disgruntled by the behaviour and life choices of...
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