Wouldn't It Be Deadly

Curtain up on the re-release of the debut book of the mystery series starring Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins. Nominated for an Agatha Award as Best Historical Mystery of 2014. 'Wouldn't It Be Deadly' picks up where the classic musical 'My Fair Lady' and George Bernard Shaw's 'Pygmalion' left off. How loverly!

In 1913 London, how well you speak the King's English determines your station in life. Professor Henry Higgins, the best phonetics teacher in Britain, has recently taught Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle how to speak – and behave - like a duchess. So he is enraged when Eliza becomes a teaching assistant to his rival, Emil Nepommuck. Even worse, Nepommuck is publicly taking credit for transforming Eliza into a lady. When the smug fellow is found with a dagger in his back, Scotland Yard views Higgins as the prime suspect. However, there are rumors that Nepommuck's pupils were being blackmailed by the man they called Maestro.

To save the Professor from prison, Eliza and Higgins must discover which of the Maestro's enemies is the real killer. Things grow more complicated when Nepommuck's fiancée, an influential marchioness, demands that someone be arrested by the end of the week, even if it turns out to be Higgins, an innocent man. With time running out, Eliza and Higgins' investigation takes them from the flower stalls of Covent Garden to the stage of the Drury Lane Theatre. And when all the suspects attend a performance of 'Hamlet', the pair of amateur sleuths decide to go off script to find the murderer before the deadly final act.