Mr. Pinkerton grows a beard

the long version

The mousy Mr. Pinkerton screws his social courage to the sticking point and takes a strange room in Bloomsbury to be near the Reading Room of the British Museum. And bravely grows a beard, to boot. Thanks to coincidence, mistaken identity, and an impenetrable London fog, he trips over and into murder and espionage, ending up much more heroic than he started. One of the better numbers in the Mr. Pinkerton series, delightfully populated with all sorts of characters, all nicely drawn by Zenobia Jones Brown, who wrote these books as David Frome, and whose intelligence and style make very good company. A classic British Golden Age mystery written by a lady from Baltimore (Maryland) who lived several years in England. Well plotted and gripping.