Michael Dibdin: The Dying of the Light (USA 1995)

From the Publisher:
One of England's most acclaimed younger mystery writers, the creator of Detective Aurelio Zen, gives us a brilliant and haunting variation on the classic drawing-room murder novel. The setting is Eventide Lodge, where the guests have gathered for tea. Colonel Weatherby is reading by the fire. Mrs. Hargreave III is whiling away her time at patience. And Miss Rosemary Travis and her friend, Dorothy, are wondering which of their housemates will be the next to die.

For even as Michael Dibdin's elderly sleuths debate clues and motives, it becomes clear that Eventide Lodge is not a genteel country inn but a place of ghastly cruelties and humiliations. A place where the logic of murder is... almost comforting. At once affectionate homage and audacious satire, The Dying of the Light will delight any aficionado of Patricia Highsmith, Peter Dickinson, or Ruth Rendell.

Michael Dibdin: The Dying of the Light. Vintage Books; ISBN: 0679753109 (January, 1995), 160 p., $11.00 / $11.95.

Michael Dibdin: The Dying of the Light (UK 1994)

From the Publisher:
The usual country house murder with the usual cast of characters? The colonel, the playboy, the clergyman are all here - and the usual murderer. Dorothy and Rosemary need only follow the clues and the culprit will be unmasked. But things are not what they seem at Eventide Lodge.

Michael Dibdin: The Dying of the Light. Faber & Faber; ISBN: 0571170285 (April, 1994), 160 p., £4.99.