First this is not the movie version of Charade. So "what is Charade? Comedy? Tragedy? Mystery? It is all three and more. Humor, tenderness, satire, compassion, insight... these qualities John Mortimer, unostentatiously displays as natural gifts," says The Daily Express when rebiewed in 1946, and in 1946 the Daily Mail stated, "Welcome stranger...", then Punch said in 1986. "These reviewers weren't overstating the case: Charade is a little masterpiece..."

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A very interesting first novel from the creator of the "Rumpole of the Baily" series.

A brand new, young, fifth assistant to the director tries to understand the many mysteries within a British film unit in June 1944. One of those mysteries includes a possible murder that almost everyone pretends didn't happen.

With an ending unlike any other I've encountered, it gives an early alert from this author to the delightful, humorous complexity of situations and endings that sets the delightful Rumpole series apart.

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