Max Boyle was hoping for a quiet life after the rough-and-tumble of World War II, but "my life with Professor Stubbs had been nothing more than one damned murder after another, and even in between murders I'd had no peace." As the professor/amateur detective's assistant, Max is inevitably drawn into the latest imbroglio, this one involving Stubbs's drinking buddy, an amiable lunatic known as Mr. Carr. It seems that Mr. Carr's dotty old Aunt Lottie, who ran a tawdry hotel in Notting Hill, was found strangled in her rocking chair. Each boarder is mentioned in her will — and all of their alibis are weak.
Stubbs is determined to exonerate his chum, the will's chief beneficiary, so the pipe-smoking, beer-swilling sleuth forces his assistance upon the long-suffering police investigator, Chief Inspector Bishop. With his characteristic humor and poetic turns of phrase, Max recounts the professor's scrutiny of a ne'er-do-well cousin, a pair of jewel thieves, a seductive but hard-boiled chambermaid, and other seedy suspects. This edition marks the witty and atmospheric mystery's first publication in the United States.