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Miss Silver #27
The Gazebo
Although Althea Graham's hypochondriac mother rarely visited the gazebo on their property, she is found dead there one morning. So Althea and her longtime fiance are finally free to marry. They are also the chief suspects. Fortunately, Miss Silver is a friend of Althea's.
278 pages, paper
First published January 1, 1955
About the author
Patricia Wentworth
180 books548 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.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 110 reviews
November 7, 2019
As I mentioned a couple of reviews ago, this series has evolved as an indication of the evolution of Patricia Wentworth’s writing skills. The last few novels have broken away from a more linear and themed approach to one that is fuller in all directions.
The characters are more fully developed, too. Not that they weren’t before, but the progress shows in how they are presented. We spend more time with each individual character, seeing life from their point of view and experiencing what they do and observe in a more intimate way.
Interestingly, this has also made it more of a challenge to identify the culprits in these mysteries. Where before the focus centered on us being privy to the dangers involved with certain people and then discovering why they committed the crimes they did, now we see more possible culprits as more people appear to have motives to commit the crimes. The layers are more intricate and deeper.
In this story, there is a big old house, a crabby and demanding mother, a frustrated and guilt-ridden daughter, an old love affair that re-surfaces, and a village full of busy-bodies and well-meaning people. I enjoyed this story so much that I look forward to the next one with great anticipation.
The characters are more fully developed, too. Not that they weren’t before, but the progress shows in how they are presented. We spend more time with each individual character, seeing life from their point of view and experiencing what they do and observe in a more intimate way.
Interestingly, this has also made it more of a challenge to identify the culprits in these mysteries. Where before the focus centered on us being privy to the dangers involved with certain people and then discovering why they committed the crimes they did, now we see more possible culprits as more people appear to have motives to commit the crimes. The layers are more intricate and deeper.
In this story, there is a big old house, a crabby and demanding mother, a frustrated and guilt-ridden daughter, an old love affair that re-surfaces, and a village full of busy-bodies and well-meaning people. I enjoyed this story so much that I look forward to the next one with great anticipation.
June 14, 2026
It's always nice when an appalling character is eliminated. Not there yet, but am anticipating the awful and narcissistic Mrs. Graham getting popped off. Since it's a Miss Silver book, Miss Marple's secret adversary, it will be bloodless and discrete but that's enough for me.
REVIEW
All in all a good mystery. Wentworth gives Agatha Christie a run for her money with her Miss Silver mysteries. Not quite as groundbreaking but equally prolific and equally veddy British.
One issue I have is that other than Miss Silver, her female characters tend to be wet blankets and lacking in any sense. There's a lot of emotional and mental handwringing that makes me want to...
This mystery is pretty satisfying even if the villain is all too easy to spot and has a unsatisfactory off page ending.
REVIEW
All in all a good mystery. Wentworth gives Agatha Christie a run for her money with her Miss Silver mysteries. Not quite as groundbreaking but equally prolific and equally veddy British.
One issue I have is that other than Miss Silver, her female characters tend to be wet blankets and lacking in any sense. There's a lot of emotional and mental handwringing that makes me want to...
This mystery is pretty satisfying even if the villain is all too easy to spot and has a unsatisfactory off page ending.
July 8, 2014
I am new to the Miss Silver mystery fan club, but I have read several of them in fast succession. Miss Silver mysteries are not great literature- they're not meant to be. They are fun and charming mysteries which can be read in a couple hours. Having read most Agatha Christie books I was thrilled to stumble upon these and found I prefer them because the story and characters feel better developed. I care about the people in the story more. That being said, The Gazebo has been one of my favorites to date of this collection. The narcissistic mother, the dutiful daughter, an old romance, and a mystery surrounding the family home all made this a fun and interesting read.
September 14, 2017
A good standard Miss Silver whodunnit. Wry, amusing observation of a good range of post-war characters, as well as a satisfying puzzle.
The GR blurb:
'Although Althea Graham's hypochondriac mother rarely visited the gazebo on their property, she is found dead there one morning. So Althea and her longtime fiance are finally free to marry. They are also the chief suspects. Fortunately, Miss Silver is a friend of Althea's.'
The GR blurb:
'Although Althea Graham's hypochondriac mother rarely visited the gazebo on their property, she is found dead there one morning. So Althea and her longtime fiance are finally free to marry. They are also the chief suspects. Fortunately, Miss Silver is a friend of Althea's.'
September 4, 2018
re-read in 2020: 3⭐️ Even though the mystery in this is very good, the abusive relationships, this read through, seemed worse (so it lost a star). 2020 feels like a hard year to read 'abuse happening' content. I prefer to listen to Diana Bishop narrating Miss Silver mysteries, as opposed to reading them myself and tried, not very successfully, to skip past 'that' content.
Extra: narcissistic mother, abusive husband (to the max), abusive wife.
2021: 4-5 ⭐️ Late night re-listen. I did skip over portions of domestic abuse that I knew where about to happen. I really like Thea, and Miss Silver in this mystery.
2022: late night relisten.
Extra: narcissistic mother, abusive husband (to the max), abusive wife.
2021: 4-5 ⭐️ Late night re-listen. I did skip over portions of domestic abuse that I knew where about to happen. I really like Thea, and Miss Silver in this mystery.
2022: late night relisten.
March 19, 2020
Mrs. Graham is frail, delicate--and totally selfish. She uses health concerns to dominate her daughter, Althea, and send away Althea's fiancé. Now Nicholas Carey is back after five years away, and he and Althea are still in love. Despite Mrs. Graham's scheming, it looks as though the two will escape her this time, but then Fate plays its final trick. The woman is found murdered, and the police think Nick is the only one with a motive. All this changes when Miss Maud Silver comes to stay with Althea, as she discovers two unsavory characters are trying to buy the Graham house, at wildly inflated prices.
November 2, 2015
The settled lives of a selfish invalid and her dutiful daughter are rocked by several strangers’ sudden interest in buying their comfortable but unremarkable home and the return of an old beau. Unlike many of the Miss Silver books, the romantic interest here is front and center, and the reader roots for the downtrodden daughter’s eventual happiness. Little asides on characters’ behavior show the author was as good at reading characters as her detective is. “Mrs Graham had been moving the date of her marriage back for years. Beyond sixteen she would, unfortunately, not be able to go…”
May 2, 2008
I rarely reread this one. The victim is so deserving of being killed, and it takes so long for it to happen, that it is tough to get through!
June 14, 2018
I've read this old favourite any times, and I regularly revisit it, as I do many of Wentworth's and Christie's books. I highly recommend this book which is a gentle, cosy mystery set in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and which is deeply embedded in the era culturally, stylistically and in terms of manners and social politics, giving the reader a wonderful sense of really being there, watching the story unfold. If some of Wentworth's heroines seem a bit of a weak-willed pushover, we have to cut her some slack for that, there are plenty of feisty ones too. the heroine of this book, is, as always the elderly, dowdy Miss Silver, retired educator now a professional 'enquiry agent', and someone who has incredible insight and compassion into the humans around her.
:) this book sees the completion of: two vests for Little Tina, and the commencement of a cardigan in a pleasing shade of violet for Miss Silver's beloved niece Ethel Burkett.
:) this book sees the completion of: two vests for Little Tina, and the commencement of a cardigan in a pleasing shade of violet for Miss Silver's beloved niece Ethel Burkett.
April 15, 2013
I love Miss Silver books. It's very different from my fantasy side, but she's a sweet little old lady who is really sharp and solves mysteries. The people who die are always making some very nice people miserable, but the nice people aren't the ones who do it. There's usually a happy romantic connection at the end, and it's just a nice, fun read.
May 28, 2026
Rather embarrassingly I bought this book by mistake thinking it was a Patricia Highsmith novel. Funny how the brain does that, with its short-cuts that trick you into seeing what you expect to see, rather than what’s actually there. I saw the name Patricia and forgot to check the surname, d’oh!
At the back of my mind I’d vaguely pigeonholed Patricia Wentworth as one of the Agatha Christie set - cosy crime on the village green. So as usual when I launch full of preconceived prejudice into a novel, I was chastened and most pleasantly surprised.
For a start, it’s not actually set in a quaint village with bicycling curates and fruit-bottling spinsters. Rather more prosaically it’s set in a fictional London suburb (Grove Hill) with an arterial main road, heavy traffic and a tube station.
There’s a cast of intriguing and complex characters quite unlike Christie’s two-dimensional stereotypes (ouch). The main characters are:
- Winifred Graham, a selfish, resentful and entirely self-centred young widow who’s strangled at midnight in the summerhouse (the gazebo of the title).
- Althea Graham, her bullied 25-year old daughter who passive-aggressively seems to enjoy the sacrifice and humiliation involved in submitting to her mother.
- Nicholas Carey, the chap Althea gave up five years ago to devote herself to her stunningly ungrateful and demanding mother. He’s determined, even “wild”, and doesn’t “really care a damn” (p84) about what others may think.
- Miss Maud Silver, with her “unflagging interest in people” (p59), who just happens to be visiting an old friend in Grove Hill, which leads to her growing friendship with Althea and Nicholas, and her determination to absolve them from suspicion of murder. Trim Miss Silver’s acclaimed approach to detection is her steady application of “principle, reason and common sense” (p160).
- Inspector Frank Abbott of Scotland Yard - blond, slim and classy (in fact, his family are gentry), so not your stereotypical police detective.
Then there are the other folk, just as sharply drawn and all too human, including:
- Bert Martin, a director of Martin & Steadman, the local estate agents, who’s handling the sale of the Graham’s house.
- Fred Worple, Bert Martin’s shady step-brother. He’s fast and flashy, filthy-rich from some dodgy enterprise and mysteriously determined to get his hands on the Graham’s house.
- Sinister Sid Blount and his colourless submissive wife, Milly, who similarly seem set on acquiring the Graham’s house, The Lodge, at any cost.
- Ella Harrison with “touched-up hair, bright make-up and extravagantly cut suit” (p35). She’s bold and bored and always on the look-out for a bit of fun with any available male.
- Ella’s hen-pecked husband, poor Jack Harrison, a “quietly depressed little man” (p21) who rather regrets having rescued brassy Ella from a chorus-line down at Brighton.
- The three Miss Pimms (Mabel, Lily and Nettie) who are tireless in their nosey-parker-ing and gossiping (“Neither a friend nor a shop assistant can talk or listen to three ladies at once, and all the Miss Pimms were talkers” p7).
- Obese, easy-going Louisa Justice with her red-haired daughter Sophy, once a best friend of Althea but now living abroad with her husband and “tribe of children” (p31).
- Miss Madison who prides herself on the nice respectability of her paying guests.
Period detail in the novel that I especially enjoyed included:
- Matching embroidery silks at the draper’s (p10).
- Myra Hutchinson, an old acquaintance of Althea’s, who’s “vivid as a poster in brown corduroy slacks and an orange cardigan above which her hair glowed like a newly minted penny” (p13).
- Fashionable cocktail parties where “you were very lucky indeed if you got a chair, and it was quite impossible to converse, the competition in voices being such as to produce a roar resembling that of the passing of a procession of tanks” (p58).
- Having to make phone calls “from the call-box at the corner” (p84) if you didn’t want people listening in to you on the single telephone at home.
- Local news spreading not on social media but from doorstep to doorstep by gossiping cleaning ladies and milkmen (p107).
- District nurse Agnes Cotton’s cheery mantelpiece featuring “a vase with ‘A present from Margate’ on it full of bronze and yellow chrysanthemums” (p116).
- Eiderdowns on beds in a world before duvets (p221).
- Miss Silver knitting a twin set in “deep smoky violet” as a Christmas present for her niece Ethel Burkett (p248).
Things that made me smile included sentences like these:
- “Her little bird like face had an effect of pecking curiosity” (p9).
- “Mrs Graham wore her invalidism in a very finished and elegant manner, from her beautifully arranged hair to the grey suede shoes which matched her dress” (p25).
- “Mrs Justice was one of those large rolling women who went her way like a benevolent juggernaut, flattening people with kindness, enthusiasm and good advice” (p31).
- “John Burford was one of those long pale lads for all the world like a piece of string dipped in tallow” (p114).
And then there were sentences that made me sad with their poignant wisdom:
- “If you made yourself think about what you were doing, not just with a surface attention but as if each thing really mattered, it did help you to get through the day” (p10).
- “Civilization has not destroyed the primitive emotions, but it insists that they should function in private” (p12).
- “I cannot undertake to prove either innocence or guilt. I can only serve the ends of justice and say, what I most earnestly believe, that in the end mercy and justice are the same” (p101).
One final whimsical thought on the novel …
At one point in the story brassy Ella Harrison ponders the “outlandish” word “gazebo”, suggesting to Nicholas Carey that saying this instead of “summerhouse” is just the kind of fancy pretentiousness that Winifred Graham would go in for. Nicholas explains that it’s actually a centuries-old architectural term (p124).
I wonder what they’d make of the fact that sixty-odd years later gazebo is the word of choice for Tesco’s cheap and cheerful patio awning, a bargain at twenty quid, perfect for rainy bank holidays …
At the back of my mind I’d vaguely pigeonholed Patricia Wentworth as one of the Agatha Christie set - cosy crime on the village green. So as usual when I launch full of preconceived prejudice into a novel, I was chastened and most pleasantly surprised.
For a start, it’s not actually set in a quaint village with bicycling curates and fruit-bottling spinsters. Rather more prosaically it’s set in a fictional London suburb (Grove Hill) with an arterial main road, heavy traffic and a tube station.
There’s a cast of intriguing and complex characters quite unlike Christie’s two-dimensional stereotypes (ouch). The main characters are:
- Winifred Graham, a selfish, resentful and entirely self-centred young widow who’s strangled at midnight in the summerhouse (the gazebo of the title).
- Althea Graham, her bullied 25-year old daughter who passive-aggressively seems to enjoy the sacrifice and humiliation involved in submitting to her mother.
- Nicholas Carey, the chap Althea gave up five years ago to devote herself to her stunningly ungrateful and demanding mother. He’s determined, even “wild”, and doesn’t “really care a damn” (p84) about what others may think.
- Miss Maud Silver, with her “unflagging interest in people” (p59), who just happens to be visiting an old friend in Grove Hill, which leads to her growing friendship with Althea and Nicholas, and her determination to absolve them from suspicion of murder. Trim Miss Silver’s acclaimed approach to detection is her steady application of “principle, reason and common sense” (p160).
- Inspector Frank Abbott of Scotland Yard - blond, slim and classy (in fact, his family are gentry), so not your stereotypical police detective.
Then there are the other folk, just as sharply drawn and all too human, including:
- Bert Martin, a director of Martin & Steadman, the local estate agents, who’s handling the sale of the Graham’s house.
- Fred Worple, Bert Martin’s shady step-brother. He’s fast and flashy, filthy-rich from some dodgy enterprise and mysteriously determined to get his hands on the Graham’s house.
- Sinister Sid Blount and his colourless submissive wife, Milly, who similarly seem set on acquiring the Graham’s house, The Lodge, at any cost.
- Ella Harrison with “touched-up hair, bright make-up and extravagantly cut suit” (p35). She’s bold and bored and always on the look-out for a bit of fun with any available male.
- Ella’s hen-pecked husband, poor Jack Harrison, a “quietly depressed little man” (p21) who rather regrets having rescued brassy Ella from a chorus-line down at Brighton.
- The three Miss Pimms (Mabel, Lily and Nettie) who are tireless in their nosey-parker-ing and gossiping (“Neither a friend nor a shop assistant can talk or listen to three ladies at once, and all the Miss Pimms were talkers” p7).
- Obese, easy-going Louisa Justice with her red-haired daughter Sophy, once a best friend of Althea but now living abroad with her husband and “tribe of children” (p31).
- Miss Madison who prides herself on the nice respectability of her paying guests.
Period detail in the novel that I especially enjoyed included:
- Matching embroidery silks at the draper’s (p10).
- Myra Hutchinson, an old acquaintance of Althea’s, who’s “vivid as a poster in brown corduroy slacks and an orange cardigan above which her hair glowed like a newly minted penny” (p13).
- Fashionable cocktail parties where “you were very lucky indeed if you got a chair, and it was quite impossible to converse, the competition in voices being such as to produce a roar resembling that of the passing of a procession of tanks” (p58).
- Having to make phone calls “from the call-box at the corner” (p84) if you didn’t want people listening in to you on the single telephone at home.
- Local news spreading not on social media but from doorstep to doorstep by gossiping cleaning ladies and milkmen (p107).
- District nurse Agnes Cotton’s cheery mantelpiece featuring “a vase with ‘A present from Margate’ on it full of bronze and yellow chrysanthemums” (p116).
- Eiderdowns on beds in a world before duvets (p221).
- Miss Silver knitting a twin set in “deep smoky violet” as a Christmas present for her niece Ethel Burkett (p248).
Things that made me smile included sentences like these:
- “Her little bird like face had an effect of pecking curiosity” (p9).
- “Mrs Graham wore her invalidism in a very finished and elegant manner, from her beautifully arranged hair to the grey suede shoes which matched her dress” (p25).
- “Mrs Justice was one of those large rolling women who went her way like a benevolent juggernaut, flattening people with kindness, enthusiasm and good advice” (p31).
- “John Burford was one of those long pale lads for all the world like a piece of string dipped in tallow” (p114).
And then there were sentences that made me sad with their poignant wisdom:
- “If you made yourself think about what you were doing, not just with a surface attention but as if each thing really mattered, it did help you to get through the day” (p10).
- “Civilization has not destroyed the primitive emotions, but it insists that they should function in private” (p12).
- “I cannot undertake to prove either innocence or guilt. I can only serve the ends of justice and say, what I most earnestly believe, that in the end mercy and justice are the same” (p101).
One final whimsical thought on the novel …
At one point in the story brassy Ella Harrison ponders the “outlandish” word “gazebo”, suggesting to Nicholas Carey that saying this instead of “summerhouse” is just the kind of fancy pretentiousness that Winifred Graham would go in for. Nicholas explains that it’s actually a centuries-old architectural term (p124).
I wonder what they’d make of the fact that sixty-odd years later gazebo is the word of choice for Tesco’s cheap and cheerful patio awning, a bargain at twenty quid, perfect for rainy bank holidays …
February 26, 2014
I so enjoy Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver series of classic British mysteries! I am very excited to see that more of the books will be available in the audio format this coming June! If you enjoy Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, you most likely will equally enjoy Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver :) Narrator Diana Bishop gives a wonderful performance, perfect for the tone of the series. I highly recommend this series for a rainy or snowy day with a nice pot of tea at hand. And maybe some knitting.....
December 15, 2017
Free | Difficult to get through, since Mrs Graham was so truly awful. | There are a few Wentworth murder victims that deserve it so much that you spend the beginning of the book looking forward to their impending demise. There are a bare handful that are such terrible people that you find yourself hoping for a particularly brutal killing. Mrs Graham was one of these latter for me. Pretty obvious solution, before the death even occurred, but not entirely to formula, which was good.
October 17, 2017
Undemanding, fairly enjoyable, reasonable love interest.
August 5, 2019
Also found under the title The Gazebo. Gazebo and summerhouse used interchangeably in the book.
July 7, 2026
Patricia Wentworth (Dora Amy Elles) was a prolific mystery writer in the same era as Agatha Christie. This series began in 1928. Christie had Miss Marple and Wentworth had Maude Silver as the heroine, solving complicated crimes. She wrote many other mystery books besides the Miss Silver series.
Maude Silver was a former governess who was as devoted to her former charges as they were to her. Often she helped her friend Inspector Frank Abbott of Scotland Yard to solve murders. Miss Silver was his former governess and her wide circle of friends was very large. She was a major influence in the lives of many children and their families which gave her many connections she used in unraveling the whodunit mysteries she came to solve.
In this particular story, The Summer House (The Gazebo), Althea Graham's mother has claimed her health will be destroyed if her daughter marries her longtime love, Nicholas Carey. He has gone away for 5 years but returns to claim Althea again and they plan to marry this time but make plans for her mother to have a companion to care for her.
Miss Silver and Althea met at a cocktail party of a common friend and became a close confidant and protector. Miss Silver is a brilliant crime solver and though her appearance may be modest and unpretentious, she is quite a strong character to be admired.
There is at least one murder to be solved and a dastardly villain to outwit and expose while also protecting an innocent person who falsely stands accused. This makes for a satisfying happy ending.
Miss Silver sees twists and turns that the police seem to miss at first inspection. If you read this series you will come to love her, as I do.
Maude Silver was a former governess who was as devoted to her former charges as they were to her. Often she helped her friend Inspector Frank Abbott of Scotland Yard to solve murders. Miss Silver was his former governess and her wide circle of friends was very large. She was a major influence in the lives of many children and their families which gave her many connections she used in unraveling the whodunit mysteries she came to solve.
In this particular story, The Summer House (The Gazebo), Althea Graham's mother has claimed her health will be destroyed if her daughter marries her longtime love, Nicholas Carey. He has gone away for 5 years but returns to claim Althea again and they plan to marry this time but make plans for her mother to have a companion to care for her.
Miss Silver and Althea met at a cocktail party of a common friend and became a close confidant and protector. Miss Silver is a brilliant crime solver and though her appearance may be modest and unpretentious, she is quite a strong character to be admired.
There is at least one murder to be solved and a dastardly villain to outwit and expose while also protecting an innocent person who falsely stands accused. This makes for a satisfying happy ending.
Miss Silver sees twists and turns that the police seem to miss at first inspection. If you read this series you will come to love her, as I do.
Read
August 5, 2026I’ve enjoyed getting to know Miss Silver and the characters in her world better. I’ve been reading them out of order and figure I’ll line up recurring characters as I learn them. Lord willing, I’ll probably end up re-reading them anyway, so I’m not too concerned about going out of order. This is my third Miss Silver book, I think. In this one, it somewhat tells you who did it earlier in the story. It’s just lining things up to figure out the details, though there’s still plenty of mystery to figure out. I was anxious and highly concerned for one of the characters. Wentworth has killed off a main-ish character in one of the other books, so I don’t fully know her style yet. I was hoping this character would make it, but I didn’t know. I still really enjoyed it, though.
Despite the title of this book, it’s not overly summer. If I remember correctly, it mentions fall weather and things different times, so next time I’d probably put it in my fall “pile of possibilities”.
Despite the title of this book, it’s not overly summer. If I remember correctly, it mentions fall weather and things different times, so next time I’d probably put it in my fall “pile of possibilities”.
May 26, 2025
Althea Graham’s life in suburbia was a daily grind of attending to the whims of her controlling mother. And then all at once her former fiancé returned, people were trying to buy her house for large sums of money - and someone was lying dead in the old gazebo in the garden…
I think this is one of the best Miss Silvers. For a writer who loves her country house murders, Patricia Wentworth does a brilliant job of evoking life in a post war suburban estate. Althea, trapped in the role of caregiver to a selfish parent who should not really need care, is an engrossing central character as she struggles to break free. Miss Silver does somewhat pull the solution out of the bag with a leap of deduction rather than step by step unravelling of clues, but otherwise this is a domestic novel as much as a detective story and bears rereading.
I think this is one of the best Miss Silvers. For a writer who loves her country house murders, Patricia Wentworth does a brilliant job of evoking life in a post war suburban estate. Althea, trapped in the role of caregiver to a selfish parent who should not really need care, is an engrossing central character as she struggles to break free. Miss Silver does somewhat pull the solution out of the bag with a leap of deduction rather than step by step unravelling of clues, but otherwise this is a domestic novel as much as a detective story and bears rereading.
July 18, 2026
Perhaps not Wentworth's best Miss Silver mystery. The murder and appearance of the detective don't take place until 100 pages in. There is a lot of repetition--events happen and then the police inspector or Silver go over it again almost verbatim with another character. Still, a fun read and a fascinating glimpse into 1950's suburban London with its cheap post-war outfits, overly nosey neighbors, and suppressed English malice (at times I had to remind myself I was not reading a Ruth Rendell novel!).
July 27, 2026
Good read
It started slowly and I wasn't sure I was going like it, but as it went on Althea became so real and I had to know what happens to her! Grove Hill and The Summerhouse play a big part in the story but the characters are so well written that you feel like you know them. Miss Silver's
role in the series is becoming much larger, and it took me a couple of books to get used to that, but now it's enjoyable to get to know her better. Frank Abbott is really my favorite. His relationship with Miss Silver is so interesting and fun. I'm on to the next book in the series!
It started slowly and I wasn't sure I was going like it, but as it went on Althea became so real and I had to know what happens to her! Grove Hill and The Summerhouse play a big part in the story but the characters are so well written that you feel like you know them. Miss Silver's
role in the series is becoming much larger, and it took me a couple of books to get used to that, but now it's enjoyable to get to know her better. Frank Abbott is really my favorite. His relationship with Miss Silver is so interesting and fun. I'm on to the next book in the series!
September 24, 2024
Another great Patricia Wentworth mystery
Recommended for all enjoying UK mystery authors such as Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie Christie. The detective Miss Silver competes easily with the more well known Miss Marple but on a less affluent social strata.
This novel only has one body but makes IP with a bigger cast of suspicious characters. A most intriguing plot and a satisfying ending up with the right villain caught in the act.
Recommended for all enjoying UK mystery authors such as Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie Christie. The detective Miss Silver competes easily with the more well known Miss Marple but on a less affluent social strata.
This novel only has one body but makes IP with a bigger cast of suspicious characters. A most intriguing plot and a satisfying ending up with the right villain caught in the act.
April 15, 2026
Well written but not the most challenging mystery
Early in the book I had guessed the culprit was one of two people. The plot was still very good on how the murder was undone but I prefer a more complicated list of suspects.
Early in the book I had guessed the culprit was one of two people. The plot was still very good on how the murder was undone but I prefer a more complicated list of suspects.
May 3, 2026
Have you ever known that person who is so long-suffering and so sweet? If not, you will meet her in this book. She reminded me of a friend who said sweetie a lot. Many times I heard disappointment and anger in that dear word. Althea Graham is resigned to being a slave to her dear, sweet mother forever. Then, Frank comes home, and hope becomes part of her vocabulary again. So much joy! Could this be the time of their freedom? Who keeps snooping around the house in the night? Who killed Mum? Miss Silver, please knit this together.
June 3, 2026
A solid entry in the Miss Silver series. It held my interest and kept me turning the pages. But it was a lot like some other Miss Silver books, with its autocratic matriarch and cowed, docile daughter. The ending was apparent by 1/2 way through, as well.
July 17, 2026
Always right in the End
Another master work by Miss Silver! Such details on this one...such bizarre and varied characters. Twists and unexpected turns. But all end well with Miss Silver on duty.
Another master work by Miss Silver! Such details on this one...such bizarre and varied characters. Twists and unexpected turns. But all end well with Miss Silver on duty.
October 1, 2026
Wentworth’s Miss Silver is a lot like Christie’s Miss Marple, but this book in particular was easy to see through. It was also weighed down by being full of post-war British customs and norms. It felt extremely dated—like watching a costume drama.
August 21, 2024
4/5 stars!
My review here:
https://goldenageofdetectivefiction.c...
My review here:
https://goldenageofdetectivefiction.c...
August 26, 2024
4.5 stars
November 22, 2024
The culprit was revealed too soon, else it seemed a good cozy/Golden Age mystery.
December 20, 2024
Miss Silver to the rescue.
Wonderful little mystery. Loved the authors writing. Truly a good mystery, keeps you wondering how it will all come out.
Wonderful little mystery. Loved the authors writing. Truly a good mystery, keeps you wondering how it will all come out.
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