The Skull Beneath the Skin (Cordelia Gray Mysteries, No. 2)

P. D. James is "the reigning mistress of murder." -- Time Private detective Cordelia Gray is invited to the sunlit island of Courcy to protect the vainly beautiful actress Clarissa Lisle from veiled threats on her life. Within the rose red walls of a fairy-tale castle, she finds the stage is set for death. "Richly intricate and literate," James's second Cordelia Gray mystery "shows James at the height of her story telling powers" (San Francisco Chronicle).