Customer Reviews

Walking Stick

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Deborah Dainton was born with polio but with the aid of a walking stick, she still is able to hold a job as appraising precious chinaware for Whittington Auction House. Bohemian artist Leigh Hartly is not put off by the beautiful and cultured Deborah's refusals to see him. Slowly, she falls in love with him and so is drawn by small and sinister steps into a world new to her, a world of shills and front men where the stakes are high and the danger also. The climax of this book is a precisely executed and dangerous robbery, described in the novel as it occurs minute by minute in masterly detail.

Debra Dainton, after a bout with childhood polio, has a short, atrophied leg and walks with a cane (the walking stick of the title). Self-conscious about her disability, despite being otherwise a very attractive woman, she has a limited social life, concentrating mainly on her work with a small, prestigious British auction house. She meets an artist at a party, who pursues her persistently despite numerous rejections, until she finally succumbs and gives him her heart. Her lover persuades her to help rob her auction house, and she soon realizes how she has been used. Mr. Graham is a fairly good story-teller, and the story moves along well; I found myself liking the heroine, with all her flaws, for her gutsiness and self-honesty.