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Nocturnal TalesMystery audiobooks for quiet evenings

The Last Waltz at Schönbrunn

Original mysteryNo. 1171 hr 20 minHercule Poirot

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The story

In winter 1928 Vienna, the Belgian Detective and his loyal companion are summoned to Schönbrunn after a count and a young diplomat’s daughter are found shot in a private pavilion, posed facing one another beside a single white rose as the city rushes to label it a romantic pact and move on; but a stopped clock, fresh soot where no fire burned, a scratched window latch, and a fragment of mother-of-pearl pull the case away from gossip and toward design, revealing a circle of debts, letters used as leverage, and a taste for staging tragedy to make inconvenient questions disappear; inspired by historical crime of its era while remaining entirely fictional, The Last Waltz at Schönbrunn is an original Golden Age–style mystery about reputation, blackmail, and the dangerous power of replacing truth with a legend.

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