Hanging on the Wire [Hardcover]

Gillian Linscott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1993

Suffragette-turned-amateur sleuth Nell Bray finds herself investigating a puzzling series of sniper attacks on a Welsh auxiliary hospital during World War I.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Turn - of - the - century activist Nell Bray (introduced in Sister Beneath the Sheet ) turns from the suffrage movement to campaign against WW I in this exhilarating mystery. Her friend Jenny Chesney asks her to come to the small auxiliary hospital in Wales where Jenny works with Dr. Julius Stroud, who is using Sigmund Freud's new techniques to help soldiers suffering from shell shock. Jenny wants Nell to help stop the efforts of rabid war supporter Monica Minter, who believes the hospital should be closed and its "coddled" patients sent back to the front. When Nell arrives she speculates about a shot that was fired into the room occupied by two soldiers, hitting neither one. Then she finds the body of one of the men, shot through the head and draped over the barbed-wire fence surrounding the hospital. While Stroud deems the death a suicide, Nell disagrees, and tries to determine the truth despite the doctor's wish to avoid notoriety, which might lead to the hospital's closing. A harrowing drive in an automobile takes plucky Nell to a final confrontation in a quarry. Linscott deftly combines period detail and psychological elements in a suspenseful plot.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-- Nellie Bray, amateur detective and ardent suffragette, is reluctantly drawn into investigating the murderous happenings at a World War I military hospital in Wales. As in her earlier adventure, Sister Beneath the Sheet (St. Martin's Pr., 1991), Nellie tackles the problem with guts and humor and proceeds at breakneck speed to upset the establishment, the military, and conventional society. Linscott presents a motley crew of suspects, including an ardently patriotic woman intent on sabotage, one food-loving soldier obsessed with sausages and another enamored of grenades and guns kept hidden under his bed, and a young man determined to join the communist revolution by bicycling to Moscow. In a true cliff hanger, Nellie solves the crime, sorts out the wounded and war-weary personnel, and sends a brigadier general into retreat. Fans of mysteries with unusual settings, strong female detectives, and a historical bent will enjoy this one.
- Mary T. Gerrity, Queen Anne School Library, Upper Marlboro, MD
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 215 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; First edition (January 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031208806X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312088064
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,621,143 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No-Nonsense Nell in a Freudian Mystery, August 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Hanging on the Wire (Hardcover)

When suffragette Nell Bray visits an old acquaintance working at a psychiatric hospital in Wales, she is soon embroiled in a puzzling mystery. Between shell-shocked soldiers on medical leave from World War I, doctors espousing Freudian techniques she does the agree with, and a fanatical supporter of the war who considers the patients shirkers, Nell has her hands full solving the crime. "Hanging on the Wire" is an interesting mystery investigated by an even more interesting amateur detective.