The Crime Coast: A Benvenuto Brown Mystery

A tragic discovery was made at Bishop’s Hotel last evening when a maid, on entering the suite of Signora da Costa, a rich Argentine guest at the hotel, found her dead body on the bed wrapped in an eiderdown.Paul Ashby is excited to be heading off on holiday to the South of France. But on the day before departure he is entrusted with a strange mission – to find a missing young man. When he arrives in St. Antoine, he falls quickly in with the local artistic set, including alluring Adelaide Moon and Argentian playboy Hernandez de Najera. Also present is eccentric painter Benvenuto Brown who suspects de Najera of murder most foul, and a Scotland Yard detective looking for the ‘slosher’, a noted jewel thief. Are thief and killer one and the same, and what is the connection to the missing boy? Benvenuto and Paul will travel from exotic watering spots to the dangerous backstreets of Marseilles in their search for the solution to this clever and elegant whodunit.The Crime Coast (also known as Strange Holiday) was originally published in 1931. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.“A first-rate story all the way through ... there is not a trick in this particular type of craftsmanship that she does not employ completely and to good advantage—suspense, plausibility, characterization and a fast tempo that carries the reader to an ingenious conclusion.” New York Times Book Review