Beginning with a Bash is the first Phoebe Atwood Taylor mystery I read. It introduced me to the ever-capable Leonidas Witherall, aka “Bill Shakespeare”, and the breathless rush of improbable events, the cross social spectrum characters with their distinctive language and accents, and the sense of enjoying a window into a world buried by history. This is America stepping out of Depression, but still wearing its mark in social dislocation, violence and new beginnings. For all that, the story is fun.