When her fiance, Giles Armitage, is lost at sea in the middle of the Second World War, Meade Underwood is left in the company of a middle-aged aunt with nothing but a monotonous round of bridge parties and war work to fill her days. A chance encounter restores Giles to Meade but he has lost his memory, and their rediscovered happiness is threatened by the machinations of the scheming Carola Roland, a figure from Giles's forgotten past. So when Carola is viciously murdered, Giles becomes the chief suspect and it takes all Miss Silver's ingenuity to unravel the real significance of the crime and its electrifying consequences.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
Praise for Patricia Wentworth: 'Miss Silver is marvellous' -- Daily Mail 'Miss Wentworth is a first-rate storyteller' -- Daily Telegraph 'Miss Silver has had her place in detective fiction as surely as Lord Peter Wimsey or Hercule Poirot' -- Manchester Evening News '... some of the best examples of the British country-house murder mystery' -- Alfred Hitchcock Magazine 'Very well written' -- Mary Stewart
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Patricia Wentworth was born in India and after writing several romances turned her hand to crime. She wrote dozens of bestselling mysteries before her death in the late Sixties, and was recognised as one of the mistresses of classic crime fiction.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Maud Silver in the twilight realm of WWII espionage,
By Michele L. Worley (Kingdom of the Mouse, United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Miss Silver Deals With Death: A Miss Silver Mystery (Paperback)
"I have only two kinds of dreams: the *bad* and the *terrible*. *Bad* dreams I can cope with. They're just nightmares, and they end eventually. I wake up. The *terrible* dreams are the *good* dreams...Everything's wonderful and normal and fine. And then I wake up...And I'm still here. And that is *truly* terrible."
-- Urania Blackwell in DREAM COUNTRY, by Neil Gaiman Maude Underwood survived a shipwreck three months before the story opens in 1942, but not the picturesque-tropical-island-type shipwreck of Wentworth's KINGDOM LOST. The German torpedo cost Maude both her health and her fiancee, Giles Armitage. Her broken bones have healed, but not her heart; her efforts to rebuild her strength and bury herself in work are all bent on trying to block the painful memories of Giles - but she can't control her dreams. The opening chapter simultaneously establishes Maude's grief and uses it to introduce the remaining characters without breaking the flow of the story, as Maude, wakened by a noise from a dream of Giles, mentally goes over the inhabitants of the other flats of Vandeleur House to lull herself back to sleep. But someone is slipping through the inhabitants' rooms in the night - is it only Ivy Lord, the maid known for sleepwalking? As is typical of mystery fiction not only set but written during WWII, sympathetic characters (male or female) who are of an age to serve but are available for the action of the story are provided with good reasons, usually either a fortnight's leave or recovery from some serious injury. (Ivy, for instance, is medically unfit.) Wentworth, as usual, writes rings around her contemporaries in terms of characterization, *not* treating bit parts as puppets - and breathing life into them incidentally makes them more credible as suspects. Old Mrs. Meredith - sunken in the past, her middle-aged caregivers appearing only as foils - or are they? Tyrannical Mrs. Lemming, draining away her daughter's youth in servitude - as Agnes crumples under the strain of overwork, underfeeding, and hopelessness, her health too weak to let her escape into war-work. Mr. Drake, of the Mephistopholean appearance, apparent concern for Agnes, and unknown past. Miss Garside, her chilly social mask concealing desperation. Mr. Willard, the fussy civil servant, endlessly finding fault with his motherly wife. (The relationship between the Willards isn't one-sided - both parties could be considered trying to live with, for different reasons.) Last, but not least, Carola Roland - an expensive peroxide blonde, always dressed to the teeth, accepting lunches and chocolates even from dull, innocent admirers in her oddly unfashionable choice of residence. Her taste for cat-and-mouse games, though, may land her in far more trouble. For Giles Armitage is not dead, after all, but only knocked endways - he remembers nothing *personal* for the last 3 years. Meeting Meade by chance, he's inclined to fall in love with her a second time. But Carola, bored with waiting for her *real* interest's divorce to become final, intends to pay off an old score against Giles: she claims that *she* is already Mrs. Armitage, with Giles' mother's wedding-ring to prove it. My congratulations to the reader who works out the truth; unfortunately, truth or fiction, Giles is mired to the neck when Carola is found murdered. Since the story is set entirely in London, we have the Scotland Yard crew of Lamb and Abbott, but not Randall March in Ledshire; for his experiences in the war, see THE CHINESE SHAWL, which took place before this case. Miss Silver is brought in early, before murder enters the story - Maude's aunt, the wife of a senior RAF officer, is fending off a blackmailer with some inside connection to Vandeleur House. And in the background lurks a connection to another famous Wentworth character: a spy with many names and faces, who isn't likely to stop with blackmailing for *money* in wartime...
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Defective reproduction,
By
This review is from: Miss Silver Deals With Death (Hardcover)
The hardcover publisher, Amereon House, obtained an original 1943 vintage printed copy having the corners of some pages torn off and reproduced it without regards to whether there was text missing from those torn pages. I wrote the publisher about 2 months ago a letter by US Mail sent to their Mattituck, NY PO box asking for them to simply provide me the contents of the missing text so I could at least pencil it in and they have not responded. Clearly they do not stand behind their work. (Had I done this project, I would have researched the missing text and transferred words or letters from the printed text to fill in the gaps with the same type style and formatting.)
Bottom line - while the story was entertaining, I recommend you purchase a different printing than that of Amereon House.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
