An elegant English townhouse conceals a viper’s nest of greed and evil in this riveting tale of romantic suspense from the author of the Miss Silver Mysteries
Flossie Palmer is in the drawing room of No. 16 Varley Street pretending to be someone else when she gets the shock of her life. In the six-foot, gilt-framed mirror against the wall, a black gaping hole appears where there should be glass. A man’s bloody head comes into view, followed by a hand trying to claw its way out of the darkness, and then another face with cruel, staring eyes. Terrified, Flossie flees for her life.
Newly returned from Paris, Miles Clayton has come back to London on a mission. His employer, a wealthy American, wants Miles to find his long-lost niece so he can bequeath her his enormous fortune. All Miles knows is her name: Miss Macintyre. When Miles and Flossie meet by chance, he has no idea that she could be the woman he’s searching for. And now someone has attempted to kill the housemaid Flossie was impersonating—but who was the intended victim?
As Miles moves closer to the truth, he uncovers a tangled family history of lies and lethal secrets.
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.