Find Me a Villain [Paperback]

Margaret Yorke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 2000

A chance encounter with a stranger, Priscilla Blunt, seems to offer Nina Crowther an escape from her problems. Middle-aged, struggling to recover from the shock of her husband divorcing her to marry a younger (and pregnant) woman, Nina happily falls in with Priscilla's idea to house-sit for her while she and her husband visit South Africa. When the phone rings on her first night in the Blunts' Berkshire manor house she expects it to be one of her duaghters, but when she lifts the receiver no-one speaks. All Nina hears is a shuddering sigh. As the calls persist Nina fears she has attracted an unwelcome suitor - or is it the man who is brutally murdering women in a nearby village? Or could it be one and the same person?

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Fascinating in its meticulous analysis of human behaviour.' TLS 'Miss Yorke has used the detective form to write a sensitive novel about a woman coming to terms with her own life.' Literary Review

About the Author

Margaret Yorke is a past Chairman of the CWA. She is the author of over forty novels and is considered an equal to P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. She is the receipient of the 1999 Cartier Diamond Dagger.

Product Details

• Paperback: 282 pages
• Publisher: Time Warner Paperbacks (February 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0751525537
• ISBN-13: 978-0751525533
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,143,664 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Tame and inoffensive, but no way a crime book, January 22, 2001

By 

AnnaKarenina (St Petersburg, of course) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Find Me a Villain (Paperback)

Some crime writers are just too understated for readers keen on continuous blood, gore and action - Patricia Highsmith comes to mind, a writer with whom this author has been (inaccurately) compared. This is the only Margaret Yorke book I've read, and I just don't get the purpose of it.

The book centers around Nina, a passive, restrained Englishwoman of small horizons - just the kind of person who might read this book, in fact. Stunned by her husband's desertion of her for the predatory and pregnant "Miss Kitty-Cat", Nina accepts a house-sitting job at an obligatorily creepy English Manor house. She gets anonymous phone calls, suspects someone of some murders that are happening at the time, discovers a family secret, sees an accidental death - and that's it.

Margaret Yorke writes well, and makes us understand her characters, despite a plot so bland it just passed me by - she has written heaps of books, so maybe this one is just an aberration. There's none of the intricate detail and plotting of PD James, but if you want a gentle and genteel female self-discovery book with just a hint of murder in the background, then you might enjoy this. But if you want suspense and excitement, read elsewhere.