The Earl of Burford cannot believe his luck. Rex Ransom, his favourite film star, and a hot-shot producer want to film their next feature at Alderley, the family's seventeenth-century country estate. Somewhat less enthusiastic are the Countess and poor Merryweather, the family's butler, who suddenly find themselves hosting the incoming Hollywood crowd. And that's before there's a murder in the dead of night. Paying homage to Golden Age crime fiction in which even the red herrings are impeccably turned out, The Affair of the Mutilated Mink is a must-read for armchair sleuths.