The heiress to a vast fortune is targeted in this page-turning novel from the author of the Miss Silver Mysteries
Ann Vernon is lunching at the Luxe when she overhears two people talking about someone who must be gotten out of the way. She has no idea that she’s that very someone! Against the advice of her boyfriend, Charles Anstruther, whose marriage proposal she’s just rejected, Ann accepts a position as secretary to an elderly woman. She accompanies Mrs. Halliday and her son, Jimmy, on a cruise, where she meets handsome, charming Gale Anderson. After a few days, the Emma puts in anchor at Loch Dhu, a remote Scottish island marked by sharp rocks, heather, and steep cliffs.
Suspecting something is not right about Ann’s employers, Charles begins an unofficial investigation. He travels to Loch Dhu, only to discover there’s no way to get on the island. As the days count down to a wealthy man’s death, steps are taken to eliminate Ann before she can inherit the estate of Elias Paulett, the great-uncle she’s never met. And once the final piece of a monstrous scheme is set in motion, not even the man she loves may be able to save her.
Kirkus Reviews hails beloved British crime writer Patricia Wentworth’s Fear by Night as “well done and full of creeps.”
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.