A Morbid Passion — Robert Holtom

A gripping 1930s-set whodunnit and love letter to Golden Age crime, this sequel to A Queer Case features queer sleuth Selby Bigge, who must solve the murder of a homosexual man â€" supposedly ‘cured' by his physician father â€" at Lady Malcolm's Servants' Ball in London's Royal Albert Hall. Perfect for fans of Nicola Upson's Josephine Tey novels.

In 1930s London, queer amateur sleuth Selby Bigge and his cross-dressing sidekick Theo/Theodora are once again called upon to solve a murder â€" this time of a homosexual man supposedly ‘cured' by his physician father â€" at Lady Malcolm's Servants' Ball, a fancy-dress event and ‘queer working-class haven' in London's Royal Albert Hall.

When ‘fruity as a pineapple' Lancelot Fortescue, son of sex-obsessed doctor Hector Fortescue, is found bludgeoned to death in Kensington Gardens on the night of the ball, Selby wonders if it might have something to do with the argument he'd witnessed on the dancefloor between the harlequin-costumed Fortescue and a mystery man dressed as a plague doctor. And why was an empty suitcase found lying just yards away?

Digging deeper, he and Theo â€" assisted by the impossibly glamorous nighclub singer Lady Spendid â€" discover that secrets abound both above and below stairs in the Kensington home of the Fortescue family. And the stakes get even higher as Selby tries to piece together the clues and sift out the red herrings to find the murderer without revealing his sexuality, lest he, too, be arrested as a criminal.