1959 suspense/thriller. Evelyn Manville was jilted, and went to work
abroad. A few years later, back in London and broke, he runs into his
old flame, now a widow with a very troublesome son…
While this does have the authentic Peters voice, I can't help
thinking that she may have been influenced by the sort of work Mary
Stewart was starting at about the same time. One can't argue the Greek
connection—My Brother Michael would only come out in the same year
as this—but certainly Peters is trying to combine themes of romance
and suspense.
Well, up to a point. While Dorothy is certainly present, she's mostly
being troubled in the background, and most of the business of the book
is between Evelyn and Dorothy's troublesome son Crispin. He grew up
with his father on archaeological digs, but since his father's recent
death he's become a troublemaker, getting himself thrown out of school
and driving off several private tutors. Evelyn may still be carrying a
torch for Dorothy (that he knows is hopeless), but the real
relationship being built here is between him and Crispin; the first
half of this book is mostly spent in working out what's going on with
him, and the second in resolving it. Because while it couldn't be
proved, Crispin is quite certain that is father's death was not the
accident it looked like. (And he's been brought up on classical Greek
tragedy, so of course Choephoroi strikes a chord.) He doesn't know
yet who his target should be, but he has s plan to find out…
Is the whole setup unlikely? Certainly. But Peters goes to a great
deal of trouble to make Crispin, in particular, work; perhaps most
boys in his situation wouldn't react the way he does, but he is not
most boys, and his upbringing and nature force him down a very
specific path which makes perfect sense for the person that he is.
Combine this fine characterisation with some splendid descriptive
writing and this short novel is altogether more impressive that one
might expect from an early non-series book.