A tale of memory loss and murder starring a sleuth who “has her place in detective fiction as surely as Lord Peter Wimsey or Hercule Poirot” ( Manchester Evening News ).
She awakes in a dark place. A young woman with a shattered memory, she knows neither who she is nor how she came to be in this abandoned house. All she possesses is a faint sense that someone is lying dead at the foot of the stairs. Horrifyingly, she is correct. In the cellar lies a young woman, her body broken, her head split, her life undone by a revolver’s shell. The amnesiac flees and finally has a stroke of luck: She meets Maud Silver. A dowdy governess turned daring detective, Miss Silver sees immediately that something is wrong. She comforts the confused young woman, and coaxes out of her what little story she can tell. The memory of the body sets Miss Silver on a fantastic adventure—the last written by Patricia Wentworth, and one of the most thrilling of them all.

Review

“Miss Silver has her place in detective fiction as surely as Lord Peter Wimsey or Hercule Poirot.” — Manchester Evening News “Patricia Wentworth has created a great detective in Miss Silver, the little old lady who nobody notices, but who in turn notices everything.” —Paula Gosling, author of the Jack Stryker mystery series “Miss Wentworth's plot is ingenious, her characterization acute, her solution satisfying.” — The Scotsman

About the Author

Patricia Wentworth (1878–1961) was one of the masters of classic English mystery writing. Born in India as Dora Amy Elles, she began writing after the death of her first husband, publishing her first novel in 1910. In the 1920s, she introduced the character who would make her famous: Miss Maud Silver, the former governess whose stout figure, fondness for Tennyson, and passion for knitting served to disguise a keen intellect. Along with Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, Miss Silver is the definitive embodiment of the English style of cozy mysteries.