As someone who has recently found more joy in certain books upon rereading them, I appreciate the many ways context can affect how we respond to a book when we encounter it. And so when I say that I read Dancing with Death (1947) by Joan Coggin at the right time, I suppose it is to acknowledge that I was fortunate enough to be in the mood to appreciate its many subtle touches which might, at any other time, have passed me be entirely. It’s very much not my usual kind of thing, but a break from the norm is often encouraged and, in this case, turned out very well indeed. One is left to rue the fact that Coggin wrote only four books, that those books are hard to find, and that she spoils the solutions of two of them in the first chapter here.