I always look forward to the latest novel by Kate Atkinson (see my previous blogs) and last year was given Shrines of Gaiety for my birthday and finally got a chance to read it in May. It is set in a London reeling from the First World War, one where everyone is keen to forget their worries in the nightclub scene dominated by Nellie Coker.
Nellie has just been released from prison and has a fight on her hands to retain her business empire from the other operators trying to muscle in. Her children are in charge of the day-to-day running of each of her clubs – The Amethyst being the jewel in her crown, outshining The Foxhole, The Pixie, The Crystal Cup  and The Sphinx – but Nellie is cleverer than them all and maintains an iron grip.
Meanwhile, Detective Chief Inspector Frobisher is trying to get to the bottom of a spate of missing young girls who keep turning up dead. He is sure the clubs have something to do with it. He enlists unlikely sidekick Gwendolyn Kelling to help him, an orphaned former librarian and nurse in the war, who is fiercely intelligent and is herself on the hunt for two missing girls – Freda and Florence.
As always with Kate Atkinson, this novel is meticulously researched and fizzes with the time and place of the roaring twenties. The tension builds, bodies accumulate, mismatched lovers become entangled and the future of the clubs hangs in the balance. A delicious read.