Leo Bruce addicts are accustomed to his unique blend of racy humour with the suspense and mystery of a crime story. In his new book the emphasis is on the mystery, a very nasty affair which seems to indicate a habitual wife murderer like Christie or Wives-in-the-bath Smith. The relatives of one Mrs. Rathbone ask Carolus Deene to investigate her disappearance. But what about the second Mrs. Rathbone? And the third? Or were they the same?The pursuit takes Carolus to a lonely house in a remote region of East Kent where he has a visitor in the night, to some curious parts of London and to an art colony in Cornwall. Everywhere he meets bizarre, sometimes richly comic, sometimes sinister characters who bring him at last to the (guaranteed unguessable) conclusion. Mr. Gorringer and that painfully witty woman, his wife, are in evidence, Mrs. Stick disapproves but cooks sublimely and Carolus Deene remains his shrewd debonair self.
The Blurb for A Bone and a Hank of Hair
From the first edition of A Bone and a Hank of Hair by Leo Bruce, published by Peter Davies (London, 1961), p. 1:
