A classic mystery reprinting for the first time since the 1950s copies of the original are extremely scarce. One of our reader favourites of the Crime Classics series returns, with the third Carnac novel starring Julian Rivers to join the Crime Classics series. From a London political setting, sending up the machinations of the civil service and

The newly formed Ministry of Fine Arts has a staffing problem - one minister dead within six months of its inception, his successor snuffed out shortly before the General Election. When a third victim, Permanent Secretary Edwin Pompfret is fatally crushed by the fall of a giant bust, Inspector Julian Rivers is drawn into a case of murder of artistic devilment.

"Her best yet. A classic story with well concealed and ingenious clues, sufficiently difficult to leave us properly surprised by both murderer and method." Spectator, 1953