Cinderella Goes to the Morgue — Nancy Spain

''Her detective novels are hilarious - less about detecting than delighting, with absurd farce and a wonderful turn of phrase . . . Nancy Spain was bold, she was brave, she was funny, she was feisty. I owe her a great deal'' Sandi Toksvig

It may not be as grim up north as they say, but it wasn''t where amateur private investigators Natasha DuVivien and Miriam Birdseye intended to spend their Christmas. When the principal boy in a production of Cinderella is murdered, and a ballerina hits the bottle a little too hard, they do the only logical thing they can do and join the cast, stranding themselves in a small industrial town for the sake of art and sleuthing. The show must go on, after all, and the detective duo must get to the bottom of things - before the final curtain falls.

Nancy Spain''s amalgam of subtle irony, pace and humour is unique among crime writers, and this book places her among the finest practitioners of the art.