The Midnight Hour: Twisty mystery from the bestselling author of The Locked Room

Elly Griffiths

Sep 2021 · Hachette UK

About this ebook

**THE THRILLING SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**

'If only all history mysteries could be as good as The Midnight Hour' The Times

An old man lies dead and it looks like poison, but his wife isn't the only one who had reason to kill him.

Brighton, 1965

When theatrical impresario Bert Billington is found dead in his retirement home, no one suspects foul play. But when the postmortem reveals that he was poisoned, suspicion falls on his wife, eccentric ex-Music Hall star Verity Malone.

Frustrated by the police response to Bert's death and determined to prove her innocence, Verity calls in private detective duo Emma Holmes and Sam Collins. This is their first real case, but as luck would have it they have a friend on the inside: Max Mephisto is filming a remake of Dracula, starring Seth Billington, Bert's son. But when they question Max, they feel he isn't telling them the whole story.

Emma and Sam must vie with the police to untangle the case and bring the killer to justice. They're sure the answers must lie in Bert's dark past and in the glamorous, occasionally deadly, days of Music Hall. But the closer they get to the truth, the more danger they find themselves in...

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PRAISE FOR THE MIDNIGHT HOUR

'An intricately plotted whodunnit' Daily Mail

'Griffiths writes with verve and wit' Irish Times

'An entertaining period murder mystery' Irish Independent

'Layered with a gripping plot' Belfast Telegraph


A Sunday Times bestseller w/c 24/04/2022

Ratings and reviews

The Midnight Hour is an entertaining and engrossing mystery, somewhat lighter in tone than Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway books, but just as well-written in terms of plot and character development. I'd recommend it to any reader who enjoys traditional-style murder mysteries and engaging female protagonists. It's 1965 and Emma Holmes and Sam Collins, who have recently opened their own private investigations agency, are called in to investigate after the sudden death of retired theatre impresario Bert Billington at his home in Rottingdean. Billington's death at first appears to have been by natural causes, but is subsequently determined by police investigators to be a poisoning. His widow, former show girl Verity, is keen to dispel suspicions that she's responsible, engaging Emma and Sam to find the real culprit. As they sift through the evidence, including a few red herrings, and gradually untangle the complex web of relationships that exists between the various parties, Emma, Sam and WPC Meg Connolly hurtle towards a dramatic climax. This novel departs significantly from earlier instalments in the series, which featured Brighton CID detective (now Superintendent) Edgar Stephens and magician-actor Max Mephisto as central protagonists. In The Midnight Hour, it is Stephens' wife Emma Holmes, a former police detective herself, together with her investigative partner Sam Collins and WPC Meg Connolly, who feature most prominently, with Stephens and Mephisto playing their roles as supporting characters. This change enables Elly Griffiths to explore the issues facing working women in the 1960s, and the embedded misogyny that existed in both the public and private spheres. The historical setting also allows Griffiths to draw in contemporaneous events, such as Sam's coverage of the arrests of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, perpetrators of the notorious "Moors Murders", adding verisimilitude to the narrative.

The Midnight Hour is the sixth book in The Brighton Mysteries series by British author, Elly Griffiths. When elderly impresario Bert Billington’s youngest son, Aaron suggests to the Brighton Police that his mother, former variety dancer, Verity Malone poisoned her husband, she engages Holmes and Collins Detective Agency to investigate. It’s a little awkward: the first time Emma Holmes is at odds with her husband, Superintendent Edgar Stephens, as his team tries to discover who fed Bert rat poison. Police and PIs question many of the same people for information, but sometimes their methods yield different results. What does come to light is that there are plenty of people with potential grudges against the old man, and that there was a mystery caller to the house in the hours before Bert died. And then there is another murder: a different MO, but with certain common aspects, with the result that Emma and WDC Meg Connolly head to Liverpool to interview a couple with a historical bearing on the cases, and from there, unexpectedly to Whitby, where Bert and Verity’s middle son Seth and Max Mephisto are filming a Dracula movie. Bert’s reputation as a philanderer swells the list of those with grievances to the families of used and discarded women, some of whose lives he ruined without qualm. Nor do all of his own family hold him in high esteem. But the second victim was a favourite with almost everyone: what could the motive be? Griffiths certainly has the reader second-guessing themselves as they settle on a perpetrator, only to be pointed elsewhere as further facts come to light. There are a number of red herrings and plenty of misdirection, from both the characters and the author. At one stage Emma reminds herself that she is dealing with “Actors and acting. Costume and disguise.” Once again, Griffiths uses multiple narrators to convey different parts of the story as well as to give different perspectives on events. The story plays out over about six weeks against a background of The Moors Murders. The mid-1960’s era ensures the absence of mobile phones, internet, DNA and even many personal vehicles; thus the detective work relies on heavily on legwork, and intelligent deduction. Fans will be pleased to have another peek into the lives of this particular cast as the characters grow and develop and face the challenges of the changing world that was the nineteen-sixties. Despite the still-rampant sexual discrimination to which they are subject, Emma, Sam, Meg and Ruby are coming into their own, quietly taking charge of their lives and making their own decisions. This is addictive historical crime fiction. This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

About the author

Elly Griffiths is the bestselling author of the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries and the Brighton Mysteries. She has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, has been shortlisted five times for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for The Lantern Men. Her new series featuring Detective Harbinder Kaur began with The Stranger Diaries, which was a Richard and Judy book club pick and won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in the USA. It was followed by The Postscript Murders, shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and Bleeding Heart Yard. Elly has two grown-up children and lives near Brighton with her archaeologist husband.