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Con odio e con rancore
It is not the happiest of journeys to the other side of the world for a family Christmas. Nina Hemslow knows that when she accepts the invitation to join her wealthy friends, Nicola and Jocelyn Foley, for the Foleys had recently lost their only child - a daughter who vanished without trace from her pram outside a supermarket, and whom police and parents are convinced is dead.
Moreover, the Foley's marriage is on the rocks, and Nina is reluctantly drawn into their mutual suspicions and recriminations, with each accusing the other of desiring the partner's death. And at the winery, where they stay with Jocelyn's brother and his employer's family, things are also difficult, not least when Nina finds her own emotions becoming involved.
Yet when sudden death occurs in the midst of an Australian Christmas, with turkey and plum pudding in a temperature of ninety degrees, it poses some very curious problems. Their unravelling and the dramatic solution in London show Elizabeth Ferrars at her vintage best.
Moreover, the Foley's marriage is on the rocks, and Nina is reluctantly drawn into their mutual suspicions and recriminations, with each accusing the other of desiring the partner's death. And at the winery, where they stay with Jocelyn's brother and his employer's family, things are also difficult, not least when Nina finds her own emotions becoming involved.
Yet when sudden death occurs in the midst of an Australian Christmas, with turkey and plum pudding in a temperature of ninety degrees, it poses some very curious problems. Their unravelling and the dramatic solution in London show Elizabeth Ferrars at her vintage best.
- GenresMystery
Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
16 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Ferrars
91 books27 followersAka E.X. Ferrars.
Born Morna Doris McTaggart in Rangoon, Burma of a Scottish father and an Irish-German mother, she grew up in England where she moved at age six. She attended Bedales school and then took a diploma in journalism at London University.
Her first two novels, 'Turn Single' (1932) and 'Broken Music' (1934), came out under her own name, Morna McTaggart. In the early 1930s she married her first husband but she left him, moved to Belsize Park in London and lived with Dr Robert Brown, a lecturer in botany at Bedford College in 1942. She eventually divorced her first husband in October 1945 and married Dr, later Professor, Brown.
It was in 1940 that her first crime novel 'Give a Corpse a Bad Name' was published under the pseudonymn that she had adopted, Elizabeth (sometimes Elizabeth X. - particularly in the USA) Ferrars, the Ferrars her mother's maiden name. This novel featured her young detective Toby Dyke, who was to feature in four other of her novels.
When her husband was offered a post at Cornell University in the USA, the couple moved there but remained only a year before returning to Britain. They travelled with her husband's work, on one occasion visiting Adelaide when he was a visiting professor at the University of South Australia, and later moved to Edinburgh where her husband was appointed Regius Professor of Botany and they lived in the city until 1977 when, on her husband's retirement, they moved to Blewsbury in Oxfordshire where they lived until her sudden death in 1995.
She continued to write a crime novel almost every year and in 1953 she was a founding member of the Crime Writers' Association of which she later became chairperson in 1977.
As well as her short series of works featuring Toby Dyke, she wrote a series featuring retired botanist Andrew Basnett and another series featuring a semi-estranged married couple, Virginia and Felix Freer. All in all she wrote over seventy novels, her final one 'A Thief in the Night' being published posthumously.
Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor described her as having "a sound enough grasp of motives and human relations and a due regard for probability and technique, but whose people and plot are so standard".
Gerry Wolstenholme
November 2010
Born Morna Doris McTaggart in Rangoon, Burma of a Scottish father and an Irish-German mother, she grew up in England where she moved at age six. She attended Bedales school and then took a diploma in journalism at London University.
Her first two novels, 'Turn Single' (1932) and 'Broken Music' (1934), came out under her own name, Morna McTaggart. In the early 1930s she married her first husband but she left him, moved to Belsize Park in London and lived with Dr Robert Brown, a lecturer in botany at Bedford College in 1942. She eventually divorced her first husband in October 1945 and married Dr, later Professor, Brown.
It was in 1940 that her first crime novel 'Give a Corpse a Bad Name' was published under the pseudonymn that she had adopted, Elizabeth (sometimes Elizabeth X. - particularly in the USA) Ferrars, the Ferrars her mother's maiden name. This novel featured her young detective Toby Dyke, who was to feature in four other of her novels.
When her husband was offered a post at Cornell University in the USA, the couple moved there but remained only a year before returning to Britain. They travelled with her husband's work, on one occasion visiting Adelaide when he was a visiting professor at the University of South Australia, and later moved to Edinburgh where her husband was appointed Regius Professor of Botany and they lived in the city until 1977 when, on her husband's retirement, they moved to Blewsbury in Oxfordshire where they lived until her sudden death in 1995.
She continued to write a crime novel almost every year and in 1953 she was a founding member of the Crime Writers' Association of which she later became chairperson in 1977.
As well as her short series of works featuring Toby Dyke, she wrote a series featuring retired botanist Andrew Basnett and another series featuring a semi-estranged married couple, Virginia and Felix Freer. All in all she wrote over seventy novels, her final one 'A Thief in the Night' being published posthumously.
Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor described her as having "a sound enough grasp of motives and human relations and a due regard for probability and technique, but whose people and plot are so standard".
Gerry Wolstenholme
November 2010
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 13, 2019
The Small World of Murder 1973) by Elizabeth Ferrars isn't your standard Christmas murder mystery. No snow, no Yule log, no holly and hot cider. It's murder on the way to Australia where Christmas will take place with turkey and plum pudding...with a blistering ninety degrees outside. It's not exactly the happiest of holiday journeys either. Nicola and Jocelyn Foley have decided to take a long journey to Australia (with stops in Mexico, Fiji, and New Zealand) to spend Christmas with Jocelyn's brother Aidan. Jocelyn has hopes that the trip will be good for them as they try to recover from the disappearance of their infant daughter who vanished from her pram outside a local supermarket. There was no demand for ransom and the police have found no leads in the months that followed. They're quite sure that the little girl is dead.
Jocelyn invites Nicola's long-time friend Nina Hemslow to join them and Nina, who could never afford such a trip on her own, accepts readily. But the atmosphere is uncomfortable, at best. Nicola soon confides in Nina that she shouldn't have come--that she is quite sure that Jocelyn is trying to kill her. There have been a few "accidents" at home and in Mexico Nicola is nearly run over when (she says) Jocelyn pushes her from the curb. But Jocelyn also tells of incidents that have made him think Nicola wants to be rid of him. It's all very confusing and oppressive.
And what about Bill Lyndon, a friend of Jocelyn's family? Why does he keep popping up wherever they go? Nina wants to confide in him--and feels herself drawn to him--but can she trust him? There is more drama and the first death occurs in Australia. But the mystery isn't unraveled until Nina returns to England...and it's even more confusing than she thought.
Okay...so I've read many of Elizabeth (E. X.) Ferrar's books--mostly in her series featuring retired professor of botany Andrew Basnett--and I've generally enjoyed them. But this one did not do a thing for me. Very oppressive, instead of suspenseful as most of her non-series books are. And really quite convoluted--especially the explanation. I'm still not sure that I understand the motivation behind the kidnapping and the murders. Unlike other novels I've read by Ferrars, there wasn't much to like about the characters, either. I didn't feel the empathy that I would expect to feel for parents who had lost their only child and I didn't feel drawn into their difficulties in recovering from the loss. The most likeable character was Nina, but even she doesn't draw my attention the way a protagonist should. Overall, a very disappointing read.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission to repost. Thanks.
Jocelyn invites Nicola's long-time friend Nina Hemslow to join them and Nina, who could never afford such a trip on her own, accepts readily. But the atmosphere is uncomfortable, at best. Nicola soon confides in Nina that she shouldn't have come--that she is quite sure that Jocelyn is trying to kill her. There have been a few "accidents" at home and in Mexico Nicola is nearly run over when (she says) Jocelyn pushes her from the curb. But Jocelyn also tells of incidents that have made him think Nicola wants to be rid of him. It's all very confusing and oppressive.
And what about Bill Lyndon, a friend of Jocelyn's family? Why does he keep popping up wherever they go? Nina wants to confide in him--and feels herself drawn to him--but can she trust him? There is more drama and the first death occurs in Australia. But the mystery isn't unraveled until Nina returns to England...and it's even more confusing than she thought.
Okay...so I've read many of Elizabeth (E. X.) Ferrar's books--mostly in her series featuring retired professor of botany Andrew Basnett--and I've generally enjoyed them. But this one did not do a thing for me. Very oppressive, instead of suspenseful as most of her non-series books are. And really quite convoluted--especially the explanation. I'm still not sure that I understand the motivation behind the kidnapping and the murders. Unlike other novels I've read by Ferrars, there wasn't much to like about the characters, either. I didn't feel the empathy that I would expect to feel for parents who had lost their only child and I didn't feel drawn into their difficulties in recovering from the loss. The most likeable character was Nina, but even she doesn't draw my attention the way a protagonist should. Overall, a very disappointing read.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission to repost. Thanks.
November 5, 2022
A mystery that starts out more with mysterious events and the narrator we follow has a hard to figuring out what to believe. As she and the couple she travels with go from place to place events happen that you yourself are finding difficult to trust. Though there are certainly as the story moves on— bits of information that you may start to turn about and question. At the very end, Nina (who we’ve been following) finds out just how much of what she thought was true and then suddenly how much more there was to the picture. So, would say that this story doesn’t have a detective but an observer who finds the facts tenuous and bit by bit with the help of another- tries to develop a clearer view of what happened.
Interesting story, and one that certainly tests you as well.
Interesting story, and one that certainly tests you as well.
August 17, 2024
Compelling and atmospheric, I’m growing more impressed with these slim Ferrars novels that I picked up on an op shop as I make my way through them. She manages to make often absurd stories into something almost natural-feeling, there’s elements of the Highsmith psychological fiction in them. Also this one has English people travelling through Mexico, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia and I was expecting some dreadful fakery but Ferrars tackled it all with impressive verisimilitude.
January 1, 2018
(4.5 stars) Unfortunately mildly racist/othering in some of the descriptions of Mexicans and Fijians and others, but this is one of Ferrars' best yarns--a devilish plot and the characterization is up to her highest standard. It starts off very slowly, but the payoff is excellent.
December 7, 2016
In London an infant is kidnapped without a trace; six months later the despondent parents have lost all hope and take a tour around the world to try to come to peace. Instead they accuse each other of trying to kill the other. While in Australia during Christmas they both are killed, the husband apparently in a drowning and the wife in a car wreck. Turns out the husband had orchestrated the kidnapping as part of a plan to kill his wife and marry his mistress. He had placed the baby with his mistress as part of the plot so that he could retain custody. But things unravel when others suspect the truth and get greedy, and nobody ends up winning. The baby is eventually found and custody is given to an aunt. Interesting but nothing special.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 20, 2015
Nicola Foley is in a fragile state after the kidnapping of her daughter. Husband Jocelyn, a popular writer, proposes a trip around the world, and suggests taking their close friend Nina. At the airport, an Australian acquaintance of Jocelyn's joins the group. After a near-miss accident in Mexico, Nicola says that her husband is trying to kill her. But Jocelyn tells a different story. Nina is not sure whom to believe. The second time in reading this, you'll kick yourself for missing the carefully hidden clues to both of Ferrars' shockers.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews