I like novels written in the fifties, I like mystery novels and I like it when literary lights try their hand (usually pseudonymously) at popular literature. So I expected to love this novel written by Gore Vidal. And I did finish it, but I can't say that I was all that impressed.

First, I found it hard to have any type of sympathy or empathy for the main character. Peter Sargeant is a WASPy product of Harvard and WWII, now man-about-town and and head of his own Public Relations company. He is also compassion-less, self-centered, and about as interesting as a dead fish. When he gets embroiled in a series of murders in the ballet company he represents, the reader just can't care.

Second, it's not much of a mystery. Peter Sargeant fancies himself quite the detective, but in the end he discovers the identity of the murderer by that old chestnut - the switched suitcase. No brain puzzlers here!

Third, the book is full of cliches. The members of the ballet company are stock characters found in novels set in terpsichorean circles : the ageing Russian ballerina with memories of Diaghilev, the ruthlessly ambitious first ballerina, the libidinous first dancer, the temperamental choreographer.

Fourth, the sex scenes are unconvincing. I am sure that casual sex was just as common in the fifties as it is now, but the way Peter embarks on an affair with a young ballerina, within hours of meeting her, an event announced by the laconic words "And so it began." is less than credible. More real estate is devoted to an evening spent in gay bars, nightclubs and bath houses, complete with drag queens and pretty boys. This was probably hot stuff in the fifties, but now it just comes across as another cliche.

In summary : worth reading as a period piece (the cocktails ! the hats! the casual discrimination of women!) but otherwise not particularly noteworthy