Paperback review: Murder On A Summer’s Day, by Frances Brody

The year is 1924: the visiting Maharajah Narayan has vanished, and the India Office asks amateur detective Kate Shackleton to find him. When the Maharajah’s body is found, the case becomes a murder investigation, and Kate sets about finding the culprit: her suspects include a rival Indian prince, the reptilian toff Mr Presthope, and Narayan’s paramour, the ambitious Miss Metcalfe.

The novels in Frances Brody’s sleuthing series are generally solid enough, but they depend on a certain finely-calibrated nostalgia for 1920s England, and that prevents her from pursuing darker, more interesting themes. The result is elegantly written, amiably peopled, and a little dull.