2023/008: Shrines of Gaiety — Kate Atkinson

2023/008: Shrines of Gaiety — Kate Atkinson

The Bright Young Things were idiotic lotus eaters, but their inane excesses could provide a bitingly cynical chapter ... Not to mention the potential for piling up the corpses, because someone ought to murder those awful people, even if only between the pages of a book. [loc 5236]

Shrines of Gaiety opens with the release of Nellie Coker -- night-club supremo, single mother of six, epitome of the view that 'there was nothing wrong with having a good time as long as she didn’t have to have one herself' -- from prison, where she's served six months over the trifling matter of a liquor license. Immediately surrounded by her adoring offspring, she is also keenly observed by DCI Frobisher and Miss Gwendolen Kelling. Frobisher is eager to infiltrate Ma Coker's emporia, and Miss Kelling, recently come into a fortune and in London to seek two teenage girls who've run away to seek fortunes of their own, has the makings of an excellent double agent.

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