August 29, 2008 at 4:26 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
The Case Is Closed by Patricia Wentworth (Mystery)
I’ve kind of said this before, but once you’ve read one Miss Silver mystery, you’ve read them all. That’s not necessarily a bad thing–familiarity can be comforting and even entertaining–but it makes it hard to write reviews.
This wasn’t one of my favourite Miss Silvers, but it wasn’t bad, either. I didn’t find the mystery very mysterious, but I enjoyed the old-fashioned setting and the characters, in a mild way.
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Miss Silver, Patricia Wentworth
July 7, 2008 at 4:17 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
91. Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth (Mystery) 332 p.
Although they’re hardly earth-shattering, I quite enjoy reading Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver mysteries. They’re comfort reading: when I don’t feel like tackling anything too challenging, they’re perfect, charming and engaging without requiring any thought. Grey Mask is no exception.
What does separate this novel from the others in the series is that it’s the first, and it’s clear that Wentworth had yet to find her stride. Miss Silver isn’t quite as Miss Silver-ish as usual, lacking many of her most distinctive traits. The mystery is a bit different than usual, and Inspector Frank Abbott and Chief Inspector Lamb, Miss Silver’s usual police contacts, don’t appear, even though their presence would make the story more plausible, suggesting that their characters hadn’t been thought up yet. The bare bones of the Miss Silver series are there, but the usual fine touches are absent. That’s okay, though; Miss Silver is as gentle and intelligent as ever, and the narrative flows easily.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pages read: 26,848
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Miss Silver, Patricia Wentworth
April 17, 2008 at 11:07 am · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
58. Anna, Where Are You? by Patricia Wentworth (Mystery) 342 p.
I have a vague memory of having read this when I was younger, but so long ago that I had no memory of the plot. In fact, I didn’t really see the solution coming, which isn’t always the case with Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver mysteries.
The advertisement in the Times agony column catches Miss Silver’s eye: “Anna, where are you? Do please write. Thomasina.” It isn’t long before Miss Silver finds herself engaged by Thomasina Elliott, to find her friend Anna Ball. Usually a faithful correspondent, Anna has abruptly stopped writing, and no one seems to know where she is. To find her, Miss Silver takes up her old profession of governess, looking after the three children at the home where Anna was last seen.
After hearing about Miss Silver’s days as a governess in every other book, it was fun to finally see her do that as well as detecting. I can easily believe that she would be a comforting person for a child, though old-fashioned.
Pages read: 16,267
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Miss Silver, Patricia Wentworth
February 19, 2008 at 7:55 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
18. The Watersplash by Patricia Wentworth (Mystery) 345 p.
Apparently a watersplash is a very shallow creek with stepping stones across it, so that’s one new thing I’ve learned today. I wasn’t much impressed with this Miss Silver novel; I guessed the entire solution before the first murder had even been committed, and I never got invested in any of the characters. Even Miss Silver failed to charm me as much as usual—although that could be the headache that’s been nagging at me all day.
Pages read: 5,393
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Miss Silver, Patricia Wentworth
February 17, 2008 at 11:44 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
13. The Benevent Treasure by Patricia Wentworth (Mystery) 353 p.
This was a bit unusual for a Miss Silver mystery, in that it was very near the end of the book before a crime was even discovered; most of the book is spent in the set-up. Unfortunately, this left very little time for a display of Miss Silver’s talent, one of the things I like best about the books. I still enjoyed The Benevent Treasure quite a bit, though.
Pages read: 4,080
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Miss Silver, Patricia Wentworth
February 17, 2008 at 11:39 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
12. The Chinese Shawl by Patricia Wentworth (Mystery) 278 p.
This is a Miss Silver mystery I enjoyed less than usual. I think it’s because I rely on Patricia Wentworth for comfort reading: old-fashioned intrigue and romance, a country-house atmosphere, and most importantly, a lot of pleasant characters. It’s in the latter that The Chinese Shawl disappointed me a little; there are a lot of very unpleasant people, and very few I actually liked—and those few didn’t appear as much as I would have preferred.
Still, Miss Silver herself is as charming as ever, and she solved an interesting puzzle, so I put down this book pretty satisfied with it.
Pages read: 3,727
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Miss Silver, Patricia Wentworth
February 13, 2008 at 11:11 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
9. Miss Silver Comes to Stay by Patricia Wentworth (Mystery) 339 p.
Big oops—I could have sworn I reviewed this already, since I read it two nights ago (before Snake Agent), but I guess not. I don’t have much to say, though. Much like Agatha Christie’s novels, which are from the same period, the Miss Silver books are fairly consistent in quality; if you like one, you’re pretty much guaranteed to like them all—as long as you don’t read too many in a row!
In Miss Silver Comes to Stay, a visit to an old school friend means Miss Silver is already on the scene when James Lessiter, now a rich man, comes home to the village of Melling after more than twenty years. When he is murdered, suspicion falls on his former fiancée and her foster son, but they are far from the only ones to have had the motive and opportunity to kill him.
As usual, Miss Silver saves the day, without departing from her customary ladylike demeanour or dropping a stitch of her omnipresent knitting.
Pages read: 2,928
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Miss Silver, Patricia Wentworth
January 10, 2008 at 12:40 am · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
127. The Clock Strikes Twelve by Patricia Wentworth (Mystery) 340 p.
I’m a big fan of the Golden Age of mystery novels, and although I don’t think Patricia Wentworth quite matches up to Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers, I love her books all the same. The mysteries are entertaining, but the manners and society of 1940’s and 50’s England are what make the Miss Silver series for me.
By a complete coincidence, I read this on New Year’s Eve, which is when it’s set: New Year’s Eve, 1940. Important secret documents go missing from James Paradine’s briefcase, and the evidence suggests it must be a member of his own family. During dinner, he makes a speech, accusing an unnamed person of betraying the family. He tells them all that he knows the identity of the traitor, and that he intends to stay in his study until midnight, to give the person time to come to him and confess. The next morning, he is found murdered. When the family’s attempts to hush up the incident at dinner fail, the principal heir, Mark Paradine, hires Miss Silver to clear up the case.
Books read: 127
Pages read: 37,955
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Miss Silver, Patricia Wentworth
September 1, 2007 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
86. The Case of William Smith by Patricia Wentworth (Mystery) 328 p.
In 1942, a British soldier is released from a German hospital under the name William Smith, with no memory of his previous life. Upon his release from a concentration camp after the war, all he is able to discover is that he is certainly not William Smith. He settles into a new life as William Smith, and lives peacefully for several years, until attempts are made on his life.
I enjoyed reading this, as I always enjoy Miss Silver mysteries, but there were a couple of things that bothered me. William Smith spends much of the war in a concentration camp, but seems to suffer no lasting damage from the experience. In fact, although Patricia Wentworth goes out of her way to describe the horrible conditions of the camp, no one ever mentions it again afterwards. Also, the way that a murder is hushed up as a suicide by the police in order to save some good people from scandal seems quite bizarre and unlikely.
Despite those things, the characters are likable, the plot is reasonably suspenseful, and the middle-class social scene of post-war England is as soothing as ever.
Books read: 86/100 (86%)
Pages read: 25,955/30,000 (87%)
Days passed: 244/365 (67%)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Miss Silver, Patricia Wentworth
August 31, 2007 at 3:22 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
84. Vanishing Point by Patricia Wentworth (Mystery) 346 p.
Maggie Bell tells her parents she is going out for some air, walks out of their house in Hazel Green, and is never seen again. A year later, the Air Ministry still suspects that her disappearance may be connected to some disturbing leakages at their nearby test centre, and calls on Scotland Yard to do some quiet poking around. Chief Inspector Lamb calls in Miss Silver. When a second woman disappears, it begins to seem as though there is something more sinister and deadly that anyone imagined at work in the village of Hazel Green.
Typical of Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver mysteries, with an interesting and well-constructed plot and lots of typically English characters. If you enjoy Agatha Christie’s mystery novels, particularly the social side, you’ll enjoy any of the Miss Silver mysteries.
Books read: 84/100 (84%)
Pages read: 25,335/30,000 (84%)
I haven’t been reading much lately, although I’ve got several books in progress, including The Lies of Locke Lamora, which I’m enjoying very much. I’ve been spending most of my free time watching Joss Whedon’s Firefly, which is an awesome show.
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Miss Silver, Patricia Wentworth
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