"Anna, Where Are You?": A Miss Silver Mystery (Paperback)

by Patricia Wentworth (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
A young governess named Anna Ball is missing, and her friend Thomasina Elliot hires Miss Silver to investigate. Miss Silver assumes the position left vacant by Anna, tending to the three Craddock children at Deepe House in Deepe End in Lincolnshire. As Miss Silver conducts her search for Anna and the solution to her mysterious disappearance, the suspense and terror mount. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

From AudioFile
Hired to trace Anna Ball, who has vanished, Miss Maud Silver encounters an eccentric art colony, bank robberies and counterfeiting. As with other Miss Silver mysteries, the story relies on character development. Nadia May reads clearly and distinguishes individuals well; her British voice is ideal for this genteel period thriller (1951). Agatha Christie fans will enjoy this one. The narration is speeded up to fit six cassettes, but it is not hard to follow. N.B.H. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Perennial (December 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060923350
• ISBN-13: 978-0060923358
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #924,748 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best Miss Silver!, May 4, 2006

By	S. Schwartz "romonko" (alberta canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Anna, Where Are You (Hardcover)

I was having trouble finding this book, but I finally did, so that is why I read it out of sequence. I had finished the Miss Silver series some weeks ago. This book was written in 1951, so sometime near the last third of Miss Silver's long writing career, but it is by far the best in the series. In it we have all kinds of good things. The best part of the book is that we see our indomitable Miss Silver returning to her former profession as governess. She does this in order to get herself inside a household where strange things have been hanppening, and the latest in these strange things was the disappearenace of a young woman who had been employed in the position that Miss Silver assumes. This is a lively story with lots of eccentric characters, ss well as bank robberies, fraud and murder. This is a fine example of an English cozy, and I'm glad that I finally found the book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just a girl who stopped writing..., March 24, 2002

By	Michele L. Worley (Kingdom of the Mouse, United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Anna, Where Are You? (Audio Cassette)

Thomasina Eliot, an old school friend, is virtually the only human contact Anna Ball has; Anna is nosy, and rather abrasive.
After receiving some of Anna's things for storage while she changed jobs (no forwarding address until Anna knew if it would work out), Thomasina is getting worried after the silence stretches to a few months. She feels responsible, since there's no one else to look out for Anna or care, and engages Miss Silver to trace her and find out if she's all right.

Miss Silver, through ingenuity and some social connections that the police didn't have, manages to extract some useful information from Miss Ball's last (hypocondriac) employer and her household, and with the help of Inspector Abbot, traces Anna to her last known address: a 'mother's help' at Deepe House, Deep End, Ledshire. Over Abbot's protests (Anna's predescessor drowned, Anna is missing) Miss Silver steps back into governess mode and goes undercover, taking the job at Deepe House. (The Craddocks, or really, Mr. Craddock, have tried to rename it Harmony, while establishing an arts/crafts colony, but the new name really didn't take.)

Reading the Miss Silver series, you might get a false impression that they're all similar; far from it. Each book does have at least one set of lovers who are in difficulties of some kind, and who revere her afterwards as a guardian angel (one view of her sitting room in this book stresses all the Victorian-framed photos of young couples and their children). They're generally similar enough in flavor that if you like one, you'll like them all; nice cozy English mysteries.

Seeing Miss Silver in the Craddock household is satisfying. Mr. Craddock, the stepfather, is a pompous fool full of high-flown theories about the right to do exactly what you want, and applying it to the kids (unless they get in the way). The kids actually behave like normal kids running wild, with a mother whose health is breaking down under stress, instead of being written as midget adults. Oh, and if you don't have a sense of humor about health food and 'tea' that tastes like hay, you may be offended by this book.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Knitting peacefully through murder., December 5, 2000

By	Bonita Kale (Cleveland OH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Anna, Where Are You (A Miss Silver Mystery) (Hardcover)

I love Miss Silver. She sees through the wicked and the good with equal acumen, helps the helpless, and gets her knitting done.

A young girl who is looking for a lost friend, and an artists' colony that may or may not be what it seems make a fine place to display a set of characters. I especially like the talkative weavers.

In this book, we get to see Miss Silver, the former governess, acting as--a governess!