Old Alderman Harbuttle, an elder of Zion Chapel, grew unusually frolicsome at the Anniversary Tea Party, even condescending to lead a game of follow-my-leader round the precincts.

In the darkest part of the chapel, however, the revels became a riot, for the Alderman was stabbed to the heart with a bread knife. Superintendent Nankivell, of the local police, comes close to solving the mystery, but not before he has stirred up the dark depths of the lives of many of the pillars of Zion...

Praise for George Bellairs:

"One of the subtlest and wittiest practitioners of the...British detective story" - The New York Times

"Sure-fire, that's Bellairs" - New York Herald Tribune

"When you get a George Bellairs story you get something worth reading" - Norfolk Ledger-Despatch

George Bellairs was the nom de plume of Harold Blundell (1902-1985), a crime writer and bank manager born in Heywood, near Rochdale, Lancashire, who settled in the Isle of Man on retirement. He wrote more than 50 books, most featuring the detective Inspector Littlejohn. He also wrote four novels under the alternative pseudonym Hilary Landon.