1991 romantic suspense. Rose Fenemore is an English tutor at
Cambridge, as well as a poet and author. She takes a cottage on the
western Scottish island of Moila to have a writing retreat free of
distraction. But why do two young men end up in her living-room one
stormy night?
This is in some ways a faded copy of Stewart in her early days.
Will someone turn out to be a criminal? Yes, but nobody will be placed at
any particular risk, and they'll be caught and hauled off by the
police, admittedly with some help from our heroine. Will there be a
romance? Yes, of course, but it's very much the beginning of the
romance, with no passionate moments even if both of them may think it
likely that those are in their future.
But Stewart was 75 and I think she can be allowed to want to take
things a bit easy, and not every book has to be non-stop peril. There
may not be desperate midnight scrambles or towering passions here, but
there is a solid story with people in it, and wild landscapes. Two
separate solid stories, in a way; after the criminal is dealt with, a
property developer comes with the intention of turning Moila into a
resort, and there's only a loose connection between the two plots. And
here's where Stewart at 75 can still shine: rather than being a stock
villain, he's an interesting person, and who he is is a key part of
how the ruination of the island can be prevented.
It's a sleepy and sometimes slow book, certainly without the thud and
blunder of the 1960s adventure stories where usually something
Sinister would have happened by the end of chapter 1, but it still has
its moments.
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