1959; mystery/thriller or romantic suspense. Camilla Haven, on holiday
in Athens, is lamenting that nothing ever happens to her. Then a
stranger brings her "the car for Delphi", for "Monsieur Simon", for
which someone has apparently already paid the deposit, and tells her
that it's a matter of life and death…
It's a bit of a plot device, but it is a well-arranged one:
Camilla had been hoping to get to Delphi anyway before her funds ran
out, and while clearly she isn't that "Simon's girl" who hired the
car, there's no sign of whoever that is, and presumably Monsieur Simon
will still be grateful to get it. So, after some effort to track down
the rightful owner, she sets off for Delphi with only basic driving
skills and a few words of Greek.
After that, things follow the loose pattern Stewart has established in
previous books: bad things are going on and amateurs will end up
dealing with them, in between loving and lush descriptions of
countryside (and, in the opening chapter, city) and some moments of
genuine and unashamed evil. Simon is in Delphi to visit the grave of
his brother, who was killed there during the war, and of course
there's more to it than that. And the shadows of Parnassus, and of the
old tales of murder and revenge, fall over everything.
The heat of Delphi in summer came over particularly well for me,
even reading on a cold day, and a scene in the amphitheatre at night
(with Simon quoting from Electra) is especially well-realised.
Camilla may not be the woman of immediate action that Charity Selborne
was, but she certainly develops over the course of the story. The
romance is more hinted-at than overt, and there's rather more mayhem
than in previous books, including a superbly-described climactic
fight.
Other characters are largely sketched in, but effectively so: the
vamp, the hapless English artist, the various locals with their own
goals. They feel drawn from the life, and one would know them if one
met them.
As far as I can tell, Delphi now has been developed and touristified
beyond recognition, as it was just beginning to be when this book was
written; so it is a welcome window into a recent past that's no longer
accessible, as well as a rather older one.
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