Customer Reviews

Dream of Fair Woman

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This is a very muddled story of identical twins, very attractive, blonde daughters of a drink sodden, once attractive harridan and a skip-out father. One of the girls is a wanna-be movie star and the other, a slow witted and easily manipulated child. One of these girls appears at the door of medical technician, Matt Cuneen and his mother, in answer to the "room to let" sign in the window. She promptly puts herself to bed and descends into an unwakeable sleep which alarms the Cuneens to the point where they take her to the local hospital to see if they can awaken her. The story leaks to the press via a nosy, pushy reporter who publishes a photo of the sleeping girl in the paper. A man appears at the hospital, claiming that the girl is his ward, Dorothy Daws, a very rich heiress whose estate he manages, and who needs, he claims, to be removed from the hospital, to his personal care. From there, the plots thickens into a muddle of police, doctors, a cult leader and an ex-husband. Save it for when you're really desperate for something, anything, to read.

Matt Cuneen's mother rents a room to a beautiful young woman, but the woman remains asleep in DREAM OF FAIR WOMAN even after she is removed to the hospital. Three people come forward to identify her after a story of the sleeping beauty appears in the local paper. The problem is that she is identified as three different people.
A good story becomes mired in too many murders and red-herrings that mislead the reader and Matt.
DREAM OF A FAIR WOMAN is only recommended in a pinch when you're out of any thing else to read. This is how I found it.
Nash Black, author of QUALIFYING LAPS.

Like everything of Charlotte Armstrong's that I have read, this book (originally published in 1966) is an engaging, nicely plotted suspense novel. The characters are interesting, the plot makes sense, and the book is fun to read without being demanding. What makes Charlotte Armstrong stand out of the crowd of similar authors is her clear, unsentimental voice.

This novel is not her best (A Dram of Poison and The Gift Shop, to my mind) but it's very nice. Read it & you'll be scouring libraries & second-hand bookstores for more.