1939 mystery/thriller, third in the Miss Silver series. Rachel
Treherne inherited her father's fortune, and has carried on his
desires as to how it would be used. But she is surrounded by parasitic
relatives, and someone is trying to murder her…
Where the first two books in this series made their villains
fairly obvious, this one is a more honest mystery: all the relatives
might reasonably expect to benefit somewhat from Rachek's death, but
which of them is so far gone as to hasten it? At the beginning of the
book Rachel has been driven to consult Miss Silver, but she doesn't
take all of that lady's advice, and she has good reason for it — if
she were to announce that she'd changed her will, the attempts on her
life might well stop, but then she might never know who'd been doing
it and she'd end up distrusting everybody.
Each the suspects has their own sins, some of which might well have
lead them to murder. or might be just coincidental. The body of the
book is spent in conversation, though there are two solid moments of
action: when Rachel is pushed off a cliff path, and in the final
confrontation when she and others are in a dimly-lit kitchen with an
old covered well. (Yes, of course the villain goes down it in the
end.)
As with many detective stories it ends a little abruptly for my taste;
Rachel has in the course of events determined to be less of a doormat
to her relatives, and I'd have been happy to see her confronting and
removing the various parasites who haven't been trying to kill her,
but the book stands well without this.
Everyone says that the series gets repetitive, and it may well do so,
but it hasn't happened yet. Good fun. There is also a very fine
dachshund who spends much of his time dreaming of badgers, but leaps
in on the one occasion when he's needed.
Freely available from Faded Page.