Trow, M: Brigade

There is a new broom at Scotland Yard: Assistant Commissioner Nimrod Frost. His first 'little job' for Lestrade is to investigate the reported appearance of a lion in Cornwall, a savager of sheep and frightener of men; hardly a task for an Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department. Having solved that case to his own satisfaction, Lestrade returns to London and to another suspicious death and then another. All old men who should have died quietly in their sleep. Is there a connection? Is there a serial killer at work? Lestrade clashes with his superiors and finds himself suspended from duty, but that is a mere technicality as he moves from workhouse to royal palace, from backstage of the Lyceum to regimental dinner in his search for clues. When can his glory fade? 'A romp it is - but Trow also has a serious side, which he shows in the first fifteen pages, giving us a sensitive historical account of the Light Brigade and the men who comprised it. Trow writes of the disastrous event with an empathy which makes this book even more exceptional.' The Strand Magazine