ENTERTAINING MURPHY

When the peace of a Cornish coastal resort is disturbed by a series of murders, the inhabitants are divided; but for a terminally ill composer, Amos Odell, it is a chance to infuse meaning into his life. The town must be cleansed, and so eventually he becomes involved in the hunt for the killer. As his illness takes hold, he is sustained by the friendship of a local hotelier, the resilient and eminently practical Polly McDougall. The varied characters of this intriguing story are all at the mercy of Odell's principal enemy, the invisible clown Murphy, a malign spirit that obstructs human happiness and entices us into dangerous compromises. Here is an unsentimental look at death, and an exposure of the social prejudice which threatens to complicate the task of the pragmatic Detective Inspector Trent, who comes to realize that Odell's belief in the clown may not be as fanciful as he had at first supposed.