Unwillingly to School: Death of an Eccentric [Hardcover]

Peter Conway (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2007

Janet Creswell, while struggling to come to terms with her husband's sudden death, received a letter and a visit from a man named Richard Medley. A former university professor, he had been a pupil at Brantwood, a boys' preparatory school in Sussex, where, for one term in 1944, she had been matron. Their meeting brings back many memories to her, but also raises some doubts. Was the headmaster, Edward Blackstone, with his maltreatment of his daughter and the boys, merely an eccentric, or was he deeply disturbed, mad, or even being poisoned? And had his death by drowning in the swimming pool been an accident, or had he been murdered? What starts as simple curiosity, becomes near obsession as Janet meets several of those involved in the school at that time—both pupils and staff—and finally discovers the truth about all those distant and disturbing events.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this pedestrian whodunit from British author Conway (Locked In), Janet Creswell, a retired doctor who'd been the undermatron at Brantwood, a boarding school near Midhurst, in the 1940s, allows a professor who'd been one of her charges back then to revive her suppressed memories of the circumstances surrounding the death of Edward Blackstone, Brantwood's headmaster. Blackstone was found in the school swimming pool, apparently the victim of an accident. Creswell seeks out others who were at the school at the time, including Blackstone's daughter, who was Brantwood's sole female student, but whose gender and relationship to the sadistic headmaster didn't spare her from corporal punishments. The lack of plot twists, dearth of memorable characters and unnecessary embedding of flashbacks within flashbacks make this an unmemorable read. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Peter Conway lives in Somerset. He is a prolific writer and Hale has published twenty-four of his novels, the most recent being Locked In.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Robert Hale (September 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0709083254
• ISBN-13: 978-0709083252
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,688,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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