The Box Office Murders An Inspector French Mystery of Cinema Cashiers, Secret Coins, and Murder

Young women working in London cinema box offices are being drawn into a strange criminal scheme-and those who discover too much are dying. A frightened cashier tells Inspector French that she and several other women have been paid to exchange ordinary coins for nearly identical pieces bearing the image of a purple sickle. The operation seems too elaborate to be harmless and too unprofitable to make sense. When one participant dies in circumstances dismissed as suicide, the cashier becomes convinced that a ruthless organization is eliminating anyone capable of exposing its purpose. Before French can secure her safety, she disappears, and another body is discovered. His investigation takes him from glittering London cinemas to hidden meeting places, false identities, suspicious journeys, and the waters off England's southern coast. Every answer reveals another layer of planning behind the Purple Sickle organization. Blending criminal conspiracy with detailed police work, The Box Office Murders is a gripping Inspector French case from one of the Golden Age's great architects of detection.