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Miss Silver #11
Latter End
In this classic British mystery starring a sleuth who “has her place in detective fiction as surely as Lord Peter Wimsey or Hercule Poirot,” Miss Silver investigates a case of marital murder (Manchester Evening News). Lois has always dreamed of being a Latter. The Latter brothers are both so attractive—nearly as handsome as their stately manor, Latter End. After she spoils her relationship with one brother, Lois succeeds with the other, winning his heart with her good looks and a sizeable fortune from her first marriage. But even after they’ve wed, she never quite fits in with the family. Still, she hardly expects them to kill her. When the psychic Memnon warns her of murder by poison, Lois laughs it off and so does everyone else, but then, like clockwork, she’s dead. The weapon? Poison, of course. Only the brilliant governess-turned-detective Miss Maud Silver can solve this tantalizing case complicated by the bitterness that infests Latter End.
356 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1947
506 people are currently reading
562 people want to read
About the author
Patricia Wentworth
162 books522 followersPatricia Wentworth--born Dora Amy Elles--was a British crime fiction writer.
She was educated privately and at Blackheath High School in London. After the death of her first husband, George F. Dillon, in 1906, she settled in Camberley, Surrey. She married George Oliver Turnbull in 1920 and they had one daughter.
She wrote a series of 32 classic-style whodunnits featuring Miss Silver, the first of which was published in 1928, and the last in 1961, the year of her death.
Miss Silver, a retired governess-turned private detective, is sometimes compared to Jane Marple, the elderly detective created by Agatha Christie. She works closely with Scotland Yard, especially Inspector Frank Abbott and is fond of quoting the poet Tennyson.
Wentworth also wrote 34 books outside of that series.
She was educated privately and at Blackheath High School in London. After the death of her first husband, George F. Dillon, in 1906, she settled in Camberley, Surrey. She married George Oliver Turnbull in 1920 and they had one daughter.
She wrote a series of 32 classic-style whodunnits featuring Miss Silver, the first of which was published in 1928, and the last in 1961, the year of her death.
Miss Silver, a retired governess-turned private detective, is sometimes compared to Jane Marple, the elderly detective created by Agatha Christie. She works closely with Scotland Yard, especially Inspector Frank Abbott and is fond of quoting the poet Tennyson.
Wentworth also wrote 34 books outside of that series.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 131 reviews
May 29, 2018
Latter End, a large country house outside of London, is the setting of Patricia Wentworth’s 11th Miss Silver novel. I was happy to see that there were some great, strong female characters once again. While Miss Silver is her retired governess self, brilliant and fact-oriented with a strong intuition about what lies between the words of people she speaks to, there were others in this novel. They were all strong in their own individual ways and as is characteristic of Ms Wentworth’s writing, care has been taken that there is congruency in each character’s psychological makeup.
This story is also a terrific mystery story. There is a murder – or suicide – and once suicide was eliminated, that left murder. Out of a household with nine people at the time, only 3 could have done it. As a reader I absolutely did not want it to be one of those three, so as I’m reading my mind is scrambling to figure out a different possibility.
I love it when a book can take me over in such a way that I am both mentally engaged and emotionally invested in the outcome. I have been reading this series for 11 months now and I know there are many books I could be reading instead. There have even been times when I’ve had to update my reading schedule where I’ve thought, “Oh, I’ve gone far enough with Miss Silver, I should just put something else in this spot.” But I can’t do it.
So far I have not yet come across any two mysteries that are close to being the same. I have also grown to be very fond of Miss Silver who is as diplomatic with the police officers she ends up working with as she is open and receptive and encouraging to the people she needs information from. I love that her aim is not to absolve a client or to mitigate a situation in favour of characters we all care about. She is there to obtain the truth. (Would that we had hundreds of Miss Silvers in the Law and in Politics!)
I am already looking forward to my next Patricia Wentworth read later in the following month – I must know what Miss Silver is going to be confronted with next!
This story is also a terrific mystery story. There is a murder – or suicide – and once suicide was eliminated, that left murder. Out of a household with nine people at the time, only 3 could have done it. As a reader I absolutely did not want it to be one of those three, so as I’m reading my mind is scrambling to figure out a different possibility.
I love it when a book can take me over in such a way that I am both mentally engaged and emotionally invested in the outcome. I have been reading this series for 11 months now and I know there are many books I could be reading instead. There have even been times when I’ve had to update my reading schedule where I’ve thought, “Oh, I’ve gone far enough with Miss Silver, I should just put something else in this spot.” But I can’t do it.
So far I have not yet come across any two mysteries that are close to being the same. I have also grown to be very fond of Miss Silver who is as diplomatic with the police officers she ends up working with as she is open and receptive and encouraging to the people she needs information from. I love that her aim is not to absolve a client or to mitigate a situation in favour of characters we all care about. She is there to obtain the truth. (Would that we had hundreds of Miss Silvers in the Law and in Politics!)
I am already looking forward to my next Patricia Wentworth read later in the following month – I must know what Miss Silver is going to be confronted with next!
June 5, 2025
Miss Silver Turns to Gold
Miss Silver is going to Latter End for a visit. A short time ago she had a visitor at her home. He was Mr. Latter and he thought that his wife would be poisoned.
Miss Silver thought that he was being dramatic. She thought nobody would be hurt there and she told him so. Someone is probably playing a prank, she believes. And she sends him away.
Cue to the middle of the story. And his wife is killed. She is poisoned with her coffee. Nobody knows how it happens.
Someone must be lying because she is dead and most of the likely suspects are there in the house. Most of the inhabitants of the house see her coffee cup sitting on the table. Nobody sees her drink it.
As usual, Miss Silver has her wits about her and she’s bringing them strong. The pacing is one of the reasons her books are so popular. The dialogue is extremely entertaining. The characters are very well written and very engaging in the most picturesque way possible. I love Patricia Wentworth!
Five stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Miss Silver is going to Latter End for a visit. A short time ago she had a visitor at her home. He was Mr. Latter and he thought that his wife would be poisoned.
Miss Silver thought that he was being dramatic. She thought nobody would be hurt there and she told him so. Someone is probably playing a prank, she believes. And she sends him away.
Cue to the middle of the story. And his wife is killed. She is poisoned with her coffee. Nobody knows how it happens.
Someone must be lying because she is dead and most of the likely suspects are there in the house. Most of the inhabitants of the house see her coffee cup sitting on the table. Nobody sees her drink it.
As usual, Miss Silver has her wits about her and she’s bringing them strong. The pacing is one of the reasons her books are so popular. The dialogue is extremely entertaining. The characters are very well written and very engaging in the most picturesque way possible. I love Patricia Wentworth!
Five stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
September 14, 2019
Exactly three stars. While the manner in which Miss Silver collects her final clue to the murderer's identity worked in the 1940s, it's so utterly incredible today that it'd be cause for the MS to be firmly rejected by any publisher.
The standard country-house mystery, a basically unoriginal plot, the surprise twist concealed by a very limp curtain; nothing too taxing, but nothing out of place in its day and time. The strongly moralistic tone of the thing was, well, honestly I found it less heavy-handed than in some entries in the series. It's pretty much confined to the expected Honour Above Crass Materialism and A Village Knows and Sees All. Middle-aged bachelor Jimmy Latter is variously depicted as being on his uppers, accepting in marriage beautiful widowed gamine Lois, who is involved in a nasty lawsuit with her dead husband's family; then Virtuously Refusing the Gelt she wins in said lawsuit after her death. Despite the fact that she used a chunk of it to renovate his shabby home. Which he resents, since he liked the shabby way it crumbled around him.
You get it...he married Lois because she was a Damsel in Distress, and now she's got agency he doesn't like it one little bit. She's painted to be such a slimeball that he's Quite Right to dislike and resent her uppity way of making things fresh and new so she can enjoy them. A Man's Home and all that. ::eyeroll::
But she goes too far when she wants his relatives to move along, get themselves a new place to droop their depressing sadnesses, and generally make room for the Lady of the Manor...the job she was seeking from the get-go...to spread her wings. This seems to me to be a bit rich, since it's now her money that pays for things; presenting her as a selfish wretch for wanting to enjoy her home...well...yes, it's clear she wasn't the right wife for Jimmy, and his life was unpleasantly upended by her youthful prettiness and its attendant selfishness; but someone please tell me why he couldn't simply have said, "Darling it's marvelous that you've finally got this pile of dosh and lovely what you'd like to do with it, but I must insist that you pay attention to my not unreasonable needs." But then there wouldn't be a story. When she turns up dead, her loud strumpet of a henchwoman, a not-our-sort broad shown to be willing to Cheat. On. Her. Tedious. Husband! *shockhorror* (and not even shown to act on it, enough that she thinks about it is Shocking!) makes sure Lois's death isn't simply swept under the gentry's handy rug. Maudie arrives, Lamb and Abbott arrive, secrets are revealed, misunderstandings are rife, the couples who should be together either get there or are pushed that way.
I'm not the least bit averse to the coupling-up drive that inhabits former romance writer Wentworth's fiction. This time, however, it's simply too perfunctory, too splodged on the plot like runny buttercream frosting on a hot cake (GBBO reference), for me to feel the warm glow of sentimental pleasure as they go two-by-two into the sunset. The highly conventional, extremely judgmental nature of the author's ouevre is here a spinier presence for the thinness of the story-dressing over it.
Series mysteries lend themselves to illiberal world-views. By their nature, they uphold ma'at and the desire we have as a species to see wrongdoers who are actually wrong suffer for their actions. The killing in this book was, by its internal lights, so richly deserved that it was hard to see how Miss Silver would be able to deflect the Awful Hand of Justice from its obvious yet incorrect course. Given what the experienced reader of series mysteries, and of this author's works in particular, knows, the solution to the crime was obvious though how the puzzle was to be unraveled was not. And that "how" was simply not credible by even the most generous modern reader's standards.
Author Wentworth's 1910 debut novel, A Marriage Under the Terror, was set in the French Revolution and features a young couple falling in love against the backdrop of betrayals and misunderstandings compounded by the awfulness of the Terror. It won her a prize, which carried a substantial sum of money with it, and launched a career of some fifty years' duration. She died at 83, having completed the final Miss Silver mystery; it was not, a la Curtain, a farewell. But fifty years in the lists left us with a massive pile of reading to do. Much of it is in the public domain, and a lot of the Miss Silver mysteries are available for 99¢ which is a bargain. If you're not utterly repelled by the bygone-era conservative politics and social attitudes, the stories have their charms.
The standard country-house mystery, a basically unoriginal plot, the surprise twist concealed by a very limp curtain; nothing too taxing, but nothing out of place in its day and time. The strongly moralistic tone of the thing was, well, honestly I found it less heavy-handed than in some entries in the series. It's pretty much confined to the expected Honour Above Crass Materialism and A Village Knows and Sees All. Middle-aged bachelor Jimmy Latter is variously depicted as being on his uppers, accepting in marriage beautiful widowed gamine Lois, who is involved in a nasty lawsuit with her dead husband's family; then Virtuously Refusing the Gelt she wins in said lawsuit after her death. Despite the fact that she used a chunk of it to renovate his shabby home. Which he resents, since he liked the shabby way it crumbled around him.
You get it...he married Lois because she was a Damsel in Distress, and now she's got agency he doesn't like it one little bit. She's painted to be such a slimeball that he's Quite Right to dislike and resent her uppity way of making things fresh and new so she can enjoy them. A Man's Home and all that. ::eyeroll::
But she goes too far when she wants his relatives to move along, get themselves a new place to droop their depressing sadnesses, and generally make room for the Lady of the Manor...the job she was seeking from the get-go...to spread her wings. This seems to me to be a bit rich, since it's now her money that pays for things; presenting her as a selfish wretch for wanting to enjoy her home...well...yes, it's clear she wasn't the right wife for Jimmy, and his life was unpleasantly upended by her youthful prettiness and its attendant selfishness; but someone please tell me why he couldn't simply have said, "Darling it's marvelous that you've finally got this pile of dosh and lovely what you'd like to do with it, but I must insist that you pay attention to my not unreasonable needs." But then there wouldn't be a story. When she turns up dead, her loud strumpet of a henchwoman, a not-our-sort broad shown to be willing to Cheat. On. Her. Tedious. Husband! *shockhorror* (and not even shown to act on it, enough that she thinks about it is Shocking!) makes sure Lois's death isn't simply swept under the gentry's handy rug. Maudie arrives, Lamb and Abbott arrive, secrets are revealed, misunderstandings are rife, the couples who should be together either get there or are pushed that way.
I'm not the least bit averse to the coupling-up drive that inhabits former romance writer Wentworth's fiction. This time, however, it's simply too perfunctory, too splodged on the plot like runny buttercream frosting on a hot cake (GBBO reference), for me to feel the warm glow of sentimental pleasure as they go two-by-two into the sunset. The highly conventional, extremely judgmental nature of the author's ouevre is here a spinier presence for the thinness of the story-dressing over it.
Series mysteries lend themselves to illiberal world-views. By their nature, they uphold ma'at and the desire we have as a species to see wrongdoers who are actually wrong suffer for their actions. The killing in this book was, by its internal lights, so richly deserved that it was hard to see how Miss Silver would be able to deflect the Awful Hand of Justice from its obvious yet incorrect course. Given what the experienced reader of series mysteries, and of this author's works in particular, knows, the solution to the crime was obvious though how the puzzle was to be unraveled was not. And that "how" was simply not credible by even the most generous modern reader's standards.
Author Wentworth's 1910 debut novel, A Marriage Under the Terror, was set in the French Revolution and features a young couple falling in love against the backdrop of betrayals and misunderstandings compounded by the awfulness of the Terror. It won her a prize, which carried a substantial sum of money with it, and launched a career of some fifty years' duration. She died at 83, having completed the final Miss Silver mystery; it was not, a la Curtain, a farewell. But fifty years in the lists left us with a massive pile of reading to do. Much of it is in the public domain, and a lot of the Miss Silver mysteries are available for 99¢ which is a bargain. If you're not utterly repelled by the bygone-era conservative politics and social attitudes, the stories have their charms.
March 29, 2018
A special thank you to my Booklikes buddy, Tigus, who steered me towards this particular Miss Silver mystery, as it is by far the best of the three that I've read so far.
The set up for Latter End has been used dozens of times before - Lord of the Manor (Jimmy Latter) marries Lois, a jumped up younger woman slash self-centered floozy who decides to be the new broom that sweeps out the old. She proceeds to throw out the old retainers and impoverished relatives, then gets into a blazing row with the husband after he finds her trying to rekindle an old flame with his cousin, Antony, who is having none of it, realizing that he made a narrow escape indeed, and ends up dead of poison in her Turkish coffee. The suspect list is loooooong, indeed, because everyone had cause to hate Lois. Including Jimmy, he's just too obtuse and taken with her fragile form to figure it out. She was truly awful.
Not Mrs. Boynton from Appointment With Death awful. More like "I'm so pretty and young and everyone should do exactly what I demand otherwise I will get bored and mope around and behave generally like a spoiled child. Oh, and I'm the center of the universe, so no one else's needs are important at all."
Frank Abbott, one of Miss Silver's old pupils who is now the younger half of a Scotland Yard detective team shows up with DI Lamb to investigate the crime. Jimmy, distraught, hires Miss Silver to come to the country house and dig around because he is convinced that the lovely Lois committed suicide because she was upset about the fact that he'd been giving her the silent treatment for two days after he found her practically mauling cousin Antony in her negligee. Did I mention that Jimmy is obtuse? Jimmy is obtuse.
Miss Silver's contribution to the mystery is very Marple-esque - she uses her knowledge of human nature and her sharp eyes to figure out when the various and sundry occupants aren't telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and then worms it out of them in the nicest way possible. I am pretty sure at this point that I like Miss Silver more than I like Miss Marple, although continued investigation is required to confirm.
I came up with a solution at 70%, which turned out to be right on. It was a pleasing solution because this is one of those mysteries where the victim is extremely hateable, and everyone else actually seems pretty nice, if a bit dramatic at times.
The Miss Silver mysteries do not seem to need to be read in order, so I'd recommend this one over either of the other two I read.
The set up for Latter End has been used dozens of times before - Lord of the Manor (Jimmy Latter) marries Lois, a jumped up younger woman slash self-centered floozy who decides to be the new broom that sweeps out the old. She proceeds to throw out the old retainers and impoverished relatives, then gets into a blazing row with the husband after he finds her trying to rekindle an old flame with his cousin, Antony, who is having none of it, realizing that he made a narrow escape indeed, and ends up dead of poison in her Turkish coffee. The suspect list is loooooong, indeed, because everyone had cause to hate Lois. Including Jimmy, he's just too obtuse and taken with her fragile form to figure it out. She was truly awful.
Not Mrs. Boynton from Appointment With Death awful. More like "I'm so pretty and young and everyone should do exactly what I demand otherwise I will get bored and mope around and behave generally like a spoiled child. Oh, and I'm the center of the universe, so no one else's needs are important at all."
Frank Abbott, one of Miss Silver's old pupils who is now the younger half of a Scotland Yard detective team shows up with DI Lamb to investigate the crime. Jimmy, distraught, hires Miss Silver to come to the country house and dig around because he is convinced that the lovely Lois committed suicide because she was upset about the fact that he'd been giving her the silent treatment for two days after he found her practically mauling cousin Antony in her negligee. Did I mention that Jimmy is obtuse? Jimmy is obtuse.
Miss Silver's contribution to the mystery is very Marple-esque - she uses her knowledge of human nature and her sharp eyes to figure out when the various and sundry occupants aren't telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and then worms it out of them in the nicest way possible. I am pretty sure at this point that I like Miss Silver more than I like Miss Marple, although continued investigation is required to confirm.
I came up with a solution at 70%, which turned out to be right on. It was a pleasing solution because this is one of those mysteries where the victim is extremely hateable, and everyone else actually seems pretty nice, if a bit dramatic at times.
The Miss Silver mysteries do not seem to need to be read in order, so I'd recommend this one over either of the other two I read.
March 29, 2019
Lois Latter was a nasty piece of work and nobody is upset when she dies unexpectedly from an overdose of morphine, but was it suicide or murder? Miss Silver is called in to solve the case and gently coughs her way to victory, leaving the police trailing in her wake.
November 25, 2020
“Once you become convinced that your wishes and desires are of more importance than a human life, there will not fail to be further opportunities of carrying that conviction into practice.”
December 30, 2019
I've now read 19 of the 32 Miss Silver mysteries. This is the 11th in the series. They are all pleasant cozy reads, with different plots and new personalities for Miss Silver to observe and analyze, but other than giving a synopsis of the plot, it is hard to give a meaningful review of each one. It does seem that each one has at least one really disagreeable character that either becomes the victim of murder or turns out to be the perpetrator, and in a way that makes them satisfying. Patricia Wentworth really knew how to make you dislike certain characters. It also seems that more often than not, blackmail is involved and more central to the crime than the other big motivators of greed and hatred. I particularly enjoy how the relationship between Maud Silver and the Scotland Yard man, Frank Abbot continues to develop.
Recently I viewed new presentations of a couple of Miss Marple stories on PBS Masterpiece Mystery and do think there are some similarities between Miss Marple and Miss Silver. It has been many years since I read the Agatha Christie mysteries, but I am finding that I really like Miss Silver, as a personality, better, and I think she is much more clever and subtle and not so doddering. I wonder why PBS has not done these mysteries, and if they did, who would they get to play Miss Maud Silver.
Recently I viewed new presentations of a couple of Miss Marple stories on PBS Masterpiece Mystery and do think there are some similarities between Miss Marple and Miss Silver. It has been many years since I read the Agatha Christie mysteries, but I am finding that I really like Miss Silver, as a personality, better, and I think she is much more clever and subtle and not so doddering. I wonder why PBS has not done these mysteries, and if they did, who would they get to play Miss Maud Silver.
July 31, 2020
Lois Latter likes getting her own way, and her easy-going husband Jimmy usually gives in to her. But she wants to get rid of his two step-sisters and the woman whose mother brought him up in childhood, and Jimmy has just caught her propositioning his young cousin. It's not surprising that Jimmy is the chief suspect when Lois is found poisoned. Miss Silver comes to stay, and persuades people to explain their secrets, which leads her to the improbable, yet obvious, solution to the crime. Not Wentworth's best, but at least there's less of Maud's piety than some of the books contain.
October 25, 2012
The family living at Latter End has always been a bit of a hotchpotch--step-siblings, old family friends, old family retainers, the stray cousin--but it worked wonderfully until Jimmy Latter, owner of the house, married the stunning but ruthless Lois. After putting up with the mishmash household--for certain values of "putting up with" that include extracting as much work as possible and imposing as much humiliation as possible--Lois decides it's time to send the whole lot packing and start over. When it's her body discovered poisoned, however, Miss Silver has to pack up her knitting once again and sort through a whole houseful of motives to find the murderer.
This classic English manor house murder gives just what it promises: a classic murder mystery with myriad suspects, an intriguing murder, an intelligent detective (who still needs to learn to carry cough drops or see a doctor--could be tuberculosis if she's coughing that much) perennially knitting as she cogitates, and a pair of hapless young lovers. In addition, especially listening to it aloud, I found that there's quite a lot of lovely, lyrical language (that doesn't alliterate quite that much, sorry) that moves Wentworth's writing from the workaday to a higher level. Eminently satisfying.
This classic English manor house murder gives just what it promises: a classic murder mystery with myriad suspects, an intriguing murder, an intelligent detective (who still needs to learn to carry cough drops or see a doctor--could be tuberculosis if she's coughing that much) perennially knitting as she cogitates, and a pair of hapless young lovers. In addition, especially listening to it aloud, I found that there's quite a lot of lovely, lyrical language (that doesn't alliterate quite that much, sorry) that moves Wentworth's writing from the workaday to a higher level. Eminently satisfying.
November 8, 2021
One of the best Miss Silver novels. Wentworth does a great job of giving the reader a number of distinctive people to care about, and threatens them in ways that make us really worry about them. For the first half of the book I wasn't sure if the villain would be killed, or someone else. When the murder finally occurred, I was devastated. Only a few people could have done it - and I didn't want it to be any of them! I spent most of the rest of the book trying to work out ways that one of them could have done it but they'd still be OK. lol I came up with a few creative ideas, but not the solution until late in the book.
This book was published in 1946, and should be judged as a mystery of its time. There are a fair numbers of interviews with suspects, but Wentworth avoids bogging the book down in them. And the solution may feel awkward to modern readers, but I thought it worked well. I thoroughly enjoyed this lovely story, and found the ending very satisfying, which is something I appreciate in a mystery, since one of the reasons I read them is to see a small piece of the world set right.
This book was published in 1946, and should be judged as a mystery of its time. There are a fair numbers of interviews with suspects, but Wentworth avoids bogging the book down in them. And the solution may feel awkward to modern readers, but I thought it worked well. I thoroughly enjoyed this lovely story, and found the ending very satisfying, which is something I appreciate in a mystery, since one of the reasons I read them is to see a small piece of the world set right.
November 29, 2020
Ah, that hit the spot. Just what I was looking for. A well-written, tidily plotted mystery in an English countryside setting. Not too many suspects for it to be confusing. An ending that ties up all the loose ends ever so neatly. I sense a Wentworth binge coming upon me.
Read
July 21, 2023I could give the same review for all Patricia Wentworth’s detective stories –slightly cardboard but endearing characters, adorable period detail, flashes of dry humour, and a well-trodden romance arc. There are a few weaker efforts (usually involving lost inheritances, shipwrecks or, always PW’s weakness, a case of lost memory) but mostly they are pretty standard fare.
Latter End is, however, unusually interesting in my view. This is mostly due to the character of Lois Latter. Lois is a virago, a forceful woman who wants money, power and attractive men and is happy to be unscrupulous in her pursuit of these things. So far, so traditional PW vamp, but Lois is also shown with occasional sympathy and understanding.
I’m also happy to report that the book’s heroine Julia Vane actually has a job. Admittedly it’s too much to swallow that a single woman who writes detective stories could afford a flat in central London, but this was the early 1950s and Julia has some private family money, as most PW characters do. Anyway, Julia’s fierce independence, her fondness for books, her untidiness and her lack of classical good looks make her a refreshing change to the passive, willowy young ladies who pass through some of PW’s books.
Julia does admittedly have a passive and willowy sister Ellie, but even she has hidden depths. There is also the usual array of hangers-on and servants, Lois’s dopey husband Jimmy (he too has an unexpected side to him) and Jimmy’s younger, better-looking and more generally desirable cousin. (Ah-ha, says the seasoned PW-reader.)
The murder plot is genuinely puzzling in this book (they aren’t always) although of course Miss Silver gets to the truth merely by looking sympathetic and doing a spot of eavesdropping. As Inspector Lamb so rightly says, ‘she has an advantage over us being in the house’. I don’t think he means listening at doors, but that’s pretty much what she does.
As always, I can sum up the book by saying ‘if this is the kind of thing you like, this is the kind of thing you’ll like’. If you read Agatha Christie’s novels for devilishly clever plotting and clue-placing, perhaps pass on. But if you also read them with half an eye on the houses, the gardens, the food, the clothes, the dialogue, the clothes, the humour, the love interest and all the rest, then stop and try a Patricia Wentworth – ideally in an old-fashioned paperback edition with a lurid illustrative cover that doesn’t quite match the content of the book. Perfect.
Latter End is, however, unusually interesting in my view. This is mostly due to the character of Lois Latter. Lois is a virago, a forceful woman who wants money, power and attractive men and is happy to be unscrupulous in her pursuit of these things. So far, so traditional PW vamp, but Lois is also shown with occasional sympathy and understanding.
I’m also happy to report that the book’s heroine Julia Vane actually has a job. Admittedly it’s too much to swallow that a single woman who writes detective stories could afford a flat in central London, but this was the early 1950s and Julia has some private family money, as most PW characters do. Anyway, Julia’s fierce independence, her fondness for books, her untidiness and her lack of classical good looks make her a refreshing change to the passive, willowy young ladies who pass through some of PW’s books.
Julia does admittedly have a passive and willowy sister Ellie, but even she has hidden depths. There is also the usual array of hangers-on and servants, Lois’s dopey husband Jimmy (he too has an unexpected side to him) and Jimmy’s younger, better-looking and more generally desirable cousin. (Ah-ha, says the seasoned PW-reader.)
The murder plot is genuinely puzzling in this book (they aren’t always) although of course Miss Silver gets to the truth merely by looking sympathetic and doing a spot of eavesdropping. As Inspector Lamb so rightly says, ‘she has an advantage over us being in the house’. I don’t think he means listening at doors, but that’s pretty much what she does.
As always, I can sum up the book by saying ‘if this is the kind of thing you like, this is the kind of thing you’ll like’. If you read Agatha Christie’s novels for devilishly clever plotting and clue-placing, perhaps pass on. But if you also read them with half an eye on the houses, the gardens, the food, the clothes, the dialogue, the clothes, the humour, the love interest and all the rest, then stop and try a Patricia Wentworth – ideally in an old-fashioned paperback edition with a lurid illustrative cover that doesn’t quite match the content of the book. Perfect.
December 31, 2023
Jimmy Latte, an easygoing middle aged bachelor has married Lois, a rich widow who has come to dominate his life and that of the other ineffectual people who inhabit his home. All of them have reason to dislike the manipulative Lois, so it’s no surprise when she is murdered. There are three possible suspects, all of them so amiable and weak that it is hard to imagine any of them murdering anyone. There are various stock Wentworth characters - the devoted cook, the uppity maid with ideas above her station, etc. The general hopelessness of the suspects did get on my nerves a bit. I found myself understanding why Lois was maddened by them. The solution is clever though.
May 18, 2016
Another charming book in this series. However...
1. How can the author name the main characters Mr & Mrs Latter, then introduce other characters named Mr & Mr Latimer. What was the author thinking? Thank goodness they only appeared for a few pages, but why employ such similair names?
2. I am not convinced that the ending held up.
1. How can the author name the main characters Mr & Mrs Latter, then introduce other characters named Mr & Mr Latimer. What was the author thinking? Thank goodness they only appeared for a few pages, but why employ such similair names?
2. I am not convinced that the ending held up.
November 5, 2009
Delightful little mystery with plenty of stunning banter, complex relationships, lovely characters, perfect pacing, and of course, our "revered perceptress," Miss Silver.
November 12, 2021
2020: Makes for easy late-night listening. Revisiting this series again.
2021: Lois is the ultimate gold-digging narcissist.
2021: Lois is the ultimate gold-digging narcissist.
July 24, 2019
Enjoyed this a lot but I would have been more interested in a HEA for Jimmy and Minnie than Antony and Julia who I did not much care about!
August 16, 2022
Repent at leisure…
Two cousins are attracted to Lois – Jimmy Latter, older, well established and with a large house; and Anthony, young, good-looking, but just starting out in life. For purely mercenary reasons Lois opts for Jimmy, and becomes the chatelaine of Latter End. But now she has inherited a fortune of her own and is rather bored with Jimmy, which is a shame since he worships her. Which is more than can be said for his large household of distantly connected relations and ancient retainers, who can’t stand Lois – a feeling that is mutual. Lois wants to run things her own way and the first thing she wants is to get rid of all these people – Jimmy’s two younger step-sisters, a woman he grew up with and views as a kind of surrogate sister (although her view of Jimmy is somewhat less platonic), old servants who have been around so long they have come to be treated almost as part of the family, and so on. And she has Jimmy wrapped round her little finger, so she can always persuade him that her plans to send all these people away to fend for themselves are made for their own benefit. So when Lois turns up dead, poisoned, the field of suspects is wide. Jimmy, however, fears he may have driven Lois to suicide, so begs Miss Silver to investigate, hoping she will prove that Lois was murdered…
Lois is that stalwart of vintage mysteries, one of the things that makes them so enjoyable – a truly unlikeable victim that neither characters nor readers feel much need to grieve over. True, Jimmy grieves, but only to an extent – even before Lois died his eyes had been opened to her true nature, so if he can only be assured that her death wasn’t his fault he’ll be able to get over her pretty easily. The rest of the characters are frankly overjoyed that she’s gone – their only concern is that they don’t want themselves or each other to be accused of the murder.
Although Lois’ duplicity and manipulation undoubtedly make her ripe for murdering, in her defence I have to admit that she had a point about the hangers-on in the household. Only two of them, step-sister Julia and cousin Anthony, seem to feel that they should make their own way in life. All the rest seem quite happy to live eternally in Jimmy’s home and off his generosity. Jimmy is old-fashioned enough to think his new wife should meekly fit herself in to all the existing household routines and traditions. Lois is not that kind of woman! She wants to be mistress of her own home, especially once she finds that she is in fact wealthier than Jimmy. Wentworth was clearly less sympathetic to that attitude than I was, and anyway when we first meet Lois she is attempting to revive her rejected suitor’s love for her despite now being a Married Woman so I quite agreed she is a Bad Lot Who Deserves All She Gets!
I loved this one. Wentworth writes exceptionally well for this genre, and while she doesn’t quite compare to Christie in terms of plotting, she manages a similar mix of mystery, suspense, occasional humour and a touch of romance. Miss Silver is not unlike Miss Marple in that she uses her status as an elderly spinster to open up the world of gossip above and below stairs, while her long life and keen intuition allow her to judge when people are hiding secrets. Like Miss Marple, she works in tandem with the police who know her of old and have a grudging respect for her abilities. However, she’s also different enough to avoid feeling like a carbon copy of Miss Marple. Miss Silver is a professional investigator, who takes on investigations for financial reward, and she therefore has a businesslike efficiency in place of Miss Marple’s disguise of fluffy ditheriness and random village parallels. Both ladies knit, however! Google tells me they both first appeared in 1927, so if this is correct, clearly their similarities are entirely coincidental.
I listened to the audiobook narrated by Diana Bishop, and she did an excellent job. She has recorded millions of the Miss Silvers (approximately), and I can see they are going to feature regularly in my future listening! Highly recommended, book and audiobook both.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Two cousins are attracted to Lois – Jimmy Latter, older, well established and with a large house; and Anthony, young, good-looking, but just starting out in life. For purely mercenary reasons Lois opts for Jimmy, and becomes the chatelaine of Latter End. But now she has inherited a fortune of her own and is rather bored with Jimmy, which is a shame since he worships her. Which is more than can be said for his large household of distantly connected relations and ancient retainers, who can’t stand Lois – a feeling that is mutual. Lois wants to run things her own way and the first thing she wants is to get rid of all these people – Jimmy’s two younger step-sisters, a woman he grew up with and views as a kind of surrogate sister (although her view of Jimmy is somewhat less platonic), old servants who have been around so long they have come to be treated almost as part of the family, and so on. And she has Jimmy wrapped round her little finger, so she can always persuade him that her plans to send all these people away to fend for themselves are made for their own benefit. So when Lois turns up dead, poisoned, the field of suspects is wide. Jimmy, however, fears he may have driven Lois to suicide, so begs Miss Silver to investigate, hoping she will prove that Lois was murdered…
Lois is that stalwart of vintage mysteries, one of the things that makes them so enjoyable – a truly unlikeable victim that neither characters nor readers feel much need to grieve over. True, Jimmy grieves, but only to an extent – even before Lois died his eyes had been opened to her true nature, so if he can only be assured that her death wasn’t his fault he’ll be able to get over her pretty easily. The rest of the characters are frankly overjoyed that she’s gone – their only concern is that they don’t want themselves or each other to be accused of the murder.
Although Lois’ duplicity and manipulation undoubtedly make her ripe for murdering, in her defence I have to admit that she had a point about the hangers-on in the household. Only two of them, step-sister Julia and cousin Anthony, seem to feel that they should make their own way in life. All the rest seem quite happy to live eternally in Jimmy’s home and off his generosity. Jimmy is old-fashioned enough to think his new wife should meekly fit herself in to all the existing household routines and traditions. Lois is not that kind of woman! She wants to be mistress of her own home, especially once she finds that she is in fact wealthier than Jimmy. Wentworth was clearly less sympathetic to that attitude than I was, and anyway when we first meet Lois she is attempting to revive her rejected suitor’s love for her despite now being a Married Woman so I quite agreed she is a Bad Lot Who Deserves All She Gets!
I loved this one. Wentworth writes exceptionally well for this genre, and while she doesn’t quite compare to Christie in terms of plotting, she manages a similar mix of mystery, suspense, occasional humour and a touch of romance. Miss Silver is not unlike Miss Marple in that she uses her status as an elderly spinster to open up the world of gossip above and below stairs, while her long life and keen intuition allow her to judge when people are hiding secrets. Like Miss Marple, she works in tandem with the police who know her of old and have a grudging respect for her abilities. However, she’s also different enough to avoid feeling like a carbon copy of Miss Marple. Miss Silver is a professional investigator, who takes on investigations for financial reward, and she therefore has a businesslike efficiency in place of Miss Marple’s disguise of fluffy ditheriness and random village parallels. Both ladies knit, however! Google tells me they both first appeared in 1927, so if this is correct, clearly their similarities are entirely coincidental.
I listened to the audiobook narrated by Diana Bishop, and she did an excellent job. She has recorded millions of the Miss Silvers (approximately), and I can see they are going to feature regularly in my future listening! Highly recommended, book and audiobook both.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
January 14, 2018
This is my first time reading a book by Patricia Wentworth and I really wanted to like it much more than I did. The mystery itself is entertaining (although it did have some holes in it, in my view, and the last 15% of the book was sort of anticlimactic). But I found Miss Silver, quite frankly, to be a little annoying. I don't know how she is in the earlier books, but here, she comes off to me as sanctimonious, preachy, and condescending, especially to those whose social position is inferior to hers. Also, some of her habits (the coughing, the knitting) were just put in way too much for them to be charming or make her eccentric (which might be what Wentworth had in mind) and they became annoying to me. Another thing to note is that this book is not exactly action-packed. The first 30% or so is actually spent setting the scene and the characters involved before the actual murder happens. I personally like this style of mystery, as I like to know who is involved and who and why might be suspected of the murder (because it becomes pretty clear in these instances who will be the victim). But for those who prefer a body much sooner in the story, this might not be for you. I do have the book with the first 3 Miss Silver mysteries and I do plan on reading them (or trying to) in the hopes that earlier in the series, Miss Silver was a little more likable and a little less patronizing!
September 27, 2019
Enjoyable whodunit, complete with quaint Victorian prose. I'm beginning to think Ms. Wentworth is the true recipient of the Grand Dame Christie mantle. I guessed the end of this one about 60% into the book, but it did not reduce my gentle enjoyment of this book. Amazing how restful violent death can be, as long as it's between the pages of a book.
January 6, 2018
Lovely (and Loathsome) Lois has Jimmy Fallen wrapped around her well-manicured finger. Everyone else in the family not-so-cordially hates her. Lois is one of those women who always gets what she wants, and doesn't care a bit what happens to anyone else.
When Lois turns up dead, the question seems to be: murder or suicide? Was Lois the type to end her own life? Not a chance. Were the people who hated her the types to murder her? Not really...but even the meek, if pushed too far, can do the unthinkable.
Favorite character: Julia Vane. Least favorite: her sister, Ellie Street. While I know that there are people in the world who are frail, both physically and emotionally, Ellie is just a limp rag. She reminds me of SueEllen O'Hara...."Y'all are just being mean to me. I'm gonna go upstairs and throw all my hair ribbons on the floor, until y'all are sorry!"
When Lois turns up dead, the question seems to be: murder or suicide? Was Lois the type to end her own life? Not a chance. Were the people who hated her the types to murder her? Not really...but even the meek, if pushed too far, can do the unthinkable.
Favorite character: Julia Vane. Least favorite: her sister, Ellie Street. While I know that there are people in the world who are frail, both physically and emotionally, Ellie is just a limp rag. She reminds me of SueEllen O'Hara...."Y'all are just being mean to me. I'm gonna go upstairs and throw all my hair ribbons on the floor, until y'all are sorry!"
June 4, 2022
I figured out the murderer rather early. It was a clever murder, but also a lucky one. The character of the wife was a truly horrible person and I was rather stunned at how the husband was completely duped by her. All for the story, I suppose.
September 4, 2023
Although they were contemporaries writing the same genre of novels, Patricia Wentworth’s mysteries haven’t aged as well as Agatha Christie’s. But I still find them fun, in a quaint, retro way. They make for nice, mindless holiday reading.
July 31, 2018
It's the same formula but oh so comfortable and always intriguing. Miss Silver rocks! And I love the romantic undertow and happy ending.
September 29, 2021
This is the best Miss Silver novel I've read. It is the perfect example of a Golden Age mystery-lots of twists, three HEA romances, and the bad guy gets what's coming to them. Loved it!
July 10, 2022
Love ‘em!
November 3, 2023
Good story. Interesting twist at the end.
September 3, 2025
Miss Silver is always enjoyable. Not great, but enjoyable!
July 11, 2024
This mystery had me flummoxed so thank goodness for Miss Silver to sort it all out!!! I found this one intriguing with a very satisfying end.
I enjoy these books very much for the social history too.
I enjoy these books very much for the social history too.
March 21, 2025
The final plot twist in this was such a surprise and such a relief - a very satisfying ending.
But let's start with the beginning, which opens with Lois Latter visiting Memnon, a fortune teller who is all the rage with the London social set Lois frequents. Lois gets a shocking warning - beware of poison. Lois is shaken, though she tries to laugh it off at lunch with Antony Latter, her one time lover she spurned for the richer and older cousin - her now husband Jimmy Latter. Lois flirts with Antony strategically all through lunch, and Wentworth's ability to quickly alternate for the reader between Lois's spoken words and interior thoughts paints a portrait of a cunning and calculating woman. Antony is no longer enraptured but does his best to stay in Lois's good graces - she is family now after all, having married his cousin. Antony is back from two years in the war and slightly jaded but certainly more mature. Lois has many plans for the family estate, most of which involve ousting the current residents. These consist largely of cousins and family retainers so long in service they are practically family at this point. Lois however, is not sentimental and is eager to get the household running along her own lines. Antony shrewdly sees the pitfalls of this approach and tries to advise Lois, but she's not one to ask for or take advice.
Wentworth cleverly takes us through interactions with each of the main players, revealing their characters deftly and in sharp relief in just a few exchanges and conversations with one another. Lois means to master them all. She does so through her husband Jimmy, contriving to present every demand as a heartfelt suggestion about what would be best for each member of the household. Jimmy buys it hook, line, and sinker. He thinks Lois angelic and himself blessed to have her divine companionship.
The rest of the house views her as from quite another religious realm, the opposite direction in fact. Tensions mount as quickly as the motives and subplots. Lois is eventually found dead in the sitting room, having been poisoned. Circumstances narrow it down to three suspects, all of whom Wentworth has drawn as eminently likeable. The reader finds it dreadful to have to come to the conclusion that one of them did it, recoils in fact from the prospect. It seems so out of character for any of them! And yet, you read on.
I probably should have figured out the plot twist earlier. I was just so swept up in the writing and having such a good time. Near the end of the novel Wentworth crafts a piece of writing so creative - it's the night before the inquest and each of the residents of the house is drifting off to sleep. Wentworth outlines their thoughts as they get settled into bed, how long it takes them to fall asleep, and then their dreams if they get to that stage. I read a lot of Golden Age mysteries and I found this passage a beautifully startling sequence in its originality and its execution. (It's such an intimate glimpse into someone's psychology: literally, how do you sleep at night?!)
Thoroughly enjoying this author, and Latter End in particular.
But let's start with the beginning, which opens with Lois Latter visiting Memnon, a fortune teller who is all the rage with the London social set Lois frequents. Lois gets a shocking warning - beware of poison. Lois is shaken, though she tries to laugh it off at lunch with Antony Latter, her one time lover she spurned for the richer and older cousin - her now husband Jimmy Latter. Lois flirts with Antony strategically all through lunch, and Wentworth's ability to quickly alternate for the reader between Lois's spoken words and interior thoughts paints a portrait of a cunning and calculating woman. Antony is no longer enraptured but does his best to stay in Lois's good graces - she is family now after all, having married his cousin. Antony is back from two years in the war and slightly jaded but certainly more mature. Lois has many plans for the family estate, most of which involve ousting the current residents. These consist largely of cousins and family retainers so long in service they are practically family at this point. Lois however, is not sentimental and is eager to get the household running along her own lines. Antony shrewdly sees the pitfalls of this approach and tries to advise Lois, but she's not one to ask for or take advice.
Wentworth cleverly takes us through interactions with each of the main players, revealing their characters deftly and in sharp relief in just a few exchanges and conversations with one another. Lois means to master them all. She does so through her husband Jimmy, contriving to present every demand as a heartfelt suggestion about what would be best for each member of the household. Jimmy buys it hook, line, and sinker. He thinks Lois angelic and himself blessed to have her divine companionship.
The rest of the house views her as from quite another religious realm, the opposite direction in fact. Tensions mount as quickly as the motives and subplots. Lois is eventually found dead in the sitting room, having been poisoned. Circumstances narrow it down to three suspects, all of whom Wentworth has drawn as eminently likeable. The reader finds it dreadful to have to come to the conclusion that one of them did it, recoils in fact from the prospect. It seems so out of character for any of them! And yet, you read on.
I probably should have figured out the plot twist earlier. I was just so swept up in the writing and having such a good time. Near the end of the novel Wentworth crafts a piece of writing so creative - it's the night before the inquest and each of the residents of the house is drifting off to sleep. Wentworth outlines their thoughts as they get settled into bed, how long it takes them to fall asleep, and then their dreams if they get to that stage. I read a lot of Golden Age mysteries and I found this passage a beautifully startling sequence in its originality and its execution. (It's such an intimate glimpse into someone's psychology: literally, how do you sleep at night?!)
Thoroughly enjoying this author, and Latter End in particular.
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