Caryl Brahms was the name used by Doris Caroline Abrahams (1901-1982), an English critic, novelist, and journalist specializing in the theatre and ballet. She also wrote film, radio and television scripts. She collaborated with a Russian friend, S. J. Simon, until his death. Simon Jacoblivitch Skidelsky (1904-1948) was also known as S. J. “Skid” Simon. He was a bridge expert when he was not composing amusing novels and short stories with Brahms.
After Simon died, Brahms wrote alone for awhile and then began to collaborate with Ned Sherrin, who developed and produced the television program That Was the Week That Was, a satirical television comedy that ran on BBC in 1962 and 1963, and the theatre revue Side by Side by Sondheim, which played in London and New York. With Brahms he wrote musicals and plays for television, radio, and stage. He wrote a comprehensive summary of Brahms and her work as an introduction to the International Polygonics reprint of A Bullet in the Ballet published in 1984.
The first of their five novels about the manic dance company managed, or mismanaged, by Vladimir Stroganoff, a well-known producer, is A Bullet in the Ballet (Michael Joseph, 1937). On the opening night in London, during the last minutes of Petrushka, the main character is shot in full view of the audience, some 2000 people, who of course did not see a thing. In the inimitable spirit of entertainment, i.e., the show must go on, Stroganoff removed the body to a dressing room, destroying the murder scene, so that the stage could be set for the next show. Thus Detective Inspector Adam Quill of Scotland Yard is met with an investigative nightmare.
The priorities of the dancers and the staff confound the inspector who begins to feel as if he has wandered into a madhouse. Quill finally settled on a likely suspect, who unfortunately was key to Stroganoff’s plans for one of his shows. Quill agrees to hold off arresting Pavel Bunia until after the dance and Bunia is shot during the performance. Quill now has two murders to solve and not much more to go on for either.
Both The Times Literary Supplement and Torquemada in The Observer praised the book, which was a best seller in the UK. Marilyn Stasio gave it a nice blurb in the New York Times, May 4, 1986, “Paperbacks; Getting the Skeletons Out – A New Turn for Mysteries” https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/04/books/paperbacks-getting-the-skeletons-out-a-new-turn-for-mysteries.html
The book doesn’t hold up well to the passage of time, which I suspect is one reason I missed most of the in jokes that contemporary reviewers say are everywhere in the story. The dotty dancers and their antics are ageless though, and Quill can be pitied for having to wrest a coherent story from any one of them. I suspect ballet experts will enjoy this book more than the average mystery reader.
See other present-day review comments in Cross-Examining Crime, https://crossexaminingcrime.com/2017/07/25/a-bullet-for-the-ballet-1937-by-caryl-brahms-and-s-j-simon/, My Reader’s Block, https://myreadersblock.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-bullet-in-ballet-review.html, Staircase Wit, https://perfectretort.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-bullet-in-ballet-by-caryl-brahms-sj.html, and Kate Macdonald’s blog, https://katemacdonald.net/2026/05/10/a-bullet-in-the-ballet-by-caryl-brahms-and-s-j-simon/.