Customer Reviews

Letter of intent (A Red badge novel of suspense)

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Celia Brett was a heavy, dowdy and inarticulate girl who left her home in the slums of New England to try to improve her lot in life at the age of 18. A quick learner despite her lack of education, she observed everything around her and absorbed knowledge like a sponge. Working firstly as a maid, she aped the manners and style of her employer, slimming down and then moving from one position to another to improve herself. While working as a housekeeper for an elderly widower who was a semi invalid, she became indispensable to him to such a degree that he made her the chief beneficiary in his will.While not actually doing anything to cause his accidental death, she certainly did nothing to help him either and ended up with a tidy sum with which to begin a new life. Constructing a fictitious background of gentility, she slowly ascended the ladder of San Francisco's social set and began to carve out a prosperous future as the intended wife of a business magnate. Again, while never actually doing any harm, she allowed events to happen which could only be coped with by someone of a frigidly cold personality who could keep her emotions totally in check. It was a strange, cold little book, rather like it's heroine.

This terrific novel of suspense and personal transformation has gripped me since I first read it as a teenager, and it's the one battered old paperback I can never let go of, even in my periodic bouts of mass de-cluttering. I'm worried about not finding another copy!

Curtiss wrote several mystery novels, and all are superb, but "Letter of Intent" is her best. The writing style is smooth, elegant, and compelling -- much like Celia, the main character, herself. Reminiscent of Hitchcock's "Marnie" (itself based on a novel), the story traces Celia's gradual evolution from inarticulate, dowdy housekeeper to elegant, upper-class mystery woman. It traces the brutal steps taken by this outwardly cool, refined woman -- Celia will stop at nothing to reach the upper echelon of society, where she feels she belongs. Along the way, Celia reveals a calculating cruelty that's fascinating to watch even if it's far from admirable.

An author takes a big risk making her lead character so unworthy of liking or admiration, and it pays off brilliantly here. As a portrait of elegant evil, Celia has rarely been matched.