This season Cleopatra is expected to attend a number of debutante balls. She goes only to appease her aunt and uncle. The first ball at Lady Bunbury’s ends early with the murder of Ambrose McDonald, a known gossip and philanderer. Cleopatra and Harry Armitage are asked by Harry's father to quietly investigate the murder since he does not believe the person arrested is the guilty party. Meanwhile Floyd, Cleopatra's cousin, has gotten into gambling debt and friend Jonathan is trying to court Cleopatra. ( )

Against her will, Cleopatra Fox must attend a series of balls during the London “Season” of 1900, along with her cousin Fanny and a number of young girls of wealthy and/or aristocratic families. Cleo’s ennui is quickly ended, however, when at the first such ball an attendee is found murdered in the library of the stately home; her detective instincts are further aroused as she learns more about the unsavory victim. After police arrest a servant for the crime, private detective Harry Armitage is asked by his police officer father to investigate further because he does not believe the servant is guilty, and of course Cleo must work with him to solve the case - while maintaining the distance the two of them agree is the only way forward for them….This is the fifth Cleopatra Fox novel, set in turn-of-the-20th-century London and featuring an educated, talented young woman who goes against society’s expectations of young women of her breeding; indeed, here she is called a “bluestocking” more than once! Not that it bothers Cleo, although her extended family is not so sanguine. I have enjoyed all of the books in this cozy series, although occasionally I run into what I think are anachronisms (in this case, Cleo will “tune out” a couple of times, but I thought that term is associated with radio, which had not been invented at the time of these books), and I don’t know that homosexuality was tolerated even by free-thinking individuals of the time; however, Cleo is your typically independent, feisty heroine who knows her own mind and is determined to live as she chooses. An entertaining tonic for hard times, and as such, recommended! ( )