Dead or Alive

Frank Garrett #1

by Patricia Wentworth

On the day she plans to divorce him, Meg O'Hara's husband Robin--a handsome British intelligence agent--disappears, and Meg is left to find out whether he is alive or dead. Reissue.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Suspense, Classics, Golden Age Mystery, Romance, Crime

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

Patricia 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.

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

A bonkers-tense story about a woman whose husband has disappeared but who starts getting creepy messages saying he's alive. There's a new romance that she isn't sure she can have because she may not be free, lots and lots of extreme tension with a spooky house, a proper crime gang. What lifts this though is that Meg's marriage was flat out abusive (emotionally rather than physically). The sense of fear and horror at Robin still being alive plus her attempts to rebuild her damaged sense of self are really effective and keep the story pounding along. Kind of slithers into melodrama towards the end, but hey.

Wentworth really could write pulp with the best. As with a good romance novel, you're sure it's going to work out, you believe that the MCs will make it because genre, but that in no way detracts from the horrendous tension and trauma of the journey when it seems impossible that they will and maybe this time the author might let you down argh. Genre done right.

[A.M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bill Coverdale is in a major pickle. He’s been in love with his friend Meg for a long time but then she marries his old school friend, Robin O’Hara, and Bill just knows she’s unhappy.

He had stayed her friend for ten years , and then she had married Robin O’Hara . That meant she was going to want a friend very badly some day . (Kindle Locations 136-137).

Ouch…
He takes himself off overseas and by the time he returns, Robin has disappeared. He took some spy job for the Foreign Office a year ago, and is missing presumed (but not yet declared) dead. Problem is, his widow doesn’t believe he’s dead. She’s been left some very weird messages telling her he’s still alive.

Bill clenched his hands . Meg wouldn’t talk if he let fly . If she didn’t talk , he couldn’t help her . But to sit there and hear her blame herself because that swine O’Hara had been a disappointed fortune - hunter took every bit of his self - control . (Kindle Locations 267-269).

And when Bill tries to help her out somebody takes potshots at him. It’s just not right.
There is an envelope of stuff O’Hara left at the bank with special instructions not to give it to anyone but him, unless he’s officially dead and then to give it to his widow. But Meg still believes her husband is alive so she won’t go to the lawyer.
[I used to be a lawyer and if I remember my Common law correctly, it takes SEVEN years to declare someone dead without a body, and if they had a body it’d be a done deal. So the biggest problem here, is she won’t be able to get her lawyer to declare him dead after just one year missing.]
Ah, okay… Garrett has some X-rays of the found body and evidently O’Hara broke his leg in a distinctive way. It matches.
Bill is getting very nervous about Meg, who has gone off to stay with her odd uncle. But it all feels queer.
For a ‘Frank Garrett mystery’ he’s not doing much sleuthing. Frank Garrett is the Head of Intelligence for the Foreign Office.
Bill keeps coming to his office and filling him in but he usually just argues against Bill’s suggestions. Get it together Frank! Before poor Meg is killed.
Meanwhile, Meg is very sus about her uncle’s new house. It’s on an island, she rarely sees him, his old staff were dismissed, and there’s no phone. What she doesn’t know is her mail is being tampered with and someone sent a telegram from her to Bill to tell him to back off.
Can they both trust their instincts, sort out the mystery, and be together?
***
This reminded me a lot of the Thirty Nine Steps.
Meg is a lot pathetic at the beginning. But she’s been gaslighted. She believes she’s so useless that she won’t harass her uncle for a loan, she won’t go to the lawyer and wind up Robin’s estate, and she certainly won’t go into the Foreign Office and demand they declare their own spy dead. She trusts people past the point where they’ve actually tried to kill her.
But when she does get it together, she’s pretty brave; it just happens too slowly for modern readers.
Although I am still a little confused about the bad guy motivation, beyond the bank envelope. *shrugs*
3 stars

[Tex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly tasty suspense-filled novel with enough twists and kinks to rival Mrs. Christie. Even with hands full of characters, each was specific to themselves. Why is Mr Postlethwaite pushing his niece away. Where is Meg’s husband? Who hired this terrible cook?is there anyone keeping the household running?

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars — 100% melodrama, too many had-I-but-known motivations, suspenseful

[Ptaylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay. I've read a few of Wentworh's Miss Silver mysteries and enjoyed them. I didn't like the characters in this one. Meg O'Hara is weak and whiny. She wants and needs a man to take care of her, to support her because she can't take care of herself. I realize that it's part of the time period, but it still irritated me. Not the way I wanted to begin reading for the New Year.

[Arthur Pierce · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this story to be generally uninteresting until about the halfway point when it did pick up a bit. But the prolonged finale, clearly designed to be tense and exciting, is neither. Besides being a poorly plotted tale with undeveloped characters, it is quite poorly written as well.

[Italo Italophiles · Rating 2 out of 5]

A man comes to see a woman who is down on her luck after years of psychological stress caused by her late husband. He sees her exhausted state and asks her what she has done to herself. The young woman reflects bitterly, “Why do people always say that? You don’t do these things to yourself.” Wentworth was very good at expressing a woman's point of view, and people seem to enjoy quoting from her books to prove it. There are some good lines in this one, but a lot of pulp in between.

Well, this one feels quite Scoobie Doo, to be honest, and I didn't enjoy it much, skimming more than reading. I guessed the plot from the first chapter, so it didn't hold much suspense. The couple seem a bit thick-headed not to have seen it too.

The author really had a dislike of actresses, I can say with confidence, after having read many of her books where the actress is a bad guy. There are many familiar elements of Wentworth books in this one, but the love match is refreshingly older.

This is technically a novel in the Frank Garrett series, and he makes a gruff appearance here and there. He is a spy chief, but this was not a spy story.

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early Bird Books Deal | Good thing my expectations were low; one of the worst "heroines" I've ever read! | No real mystery, the solution was obvious from the first moment that a particular character was introduced. The female lead was literally starving herself rather than accept a small loan from a man who loved her and whom she'd known all her life. She also refused to go to a lawyer and get money that was hers by right, because somebody poked holes in a leaf and left it for her to find. I'm not kidding. Very little personality and basically no gumption. Really a two-star book, but I've read enough by this author that I knew what I was getting myself in for, and was just looking for a very light fluffy read with a bit of "suspense"--such as it is.

[Vintagebooklvr · Rating 3 out of 5]

2 1/2 stars. Agatha Christie, Patricia Wentworth and a few other mystery writers of that time also wrote thrillers and weren't as good at it as they were with their mysteries. This isn't bad and there plenty of action and suspense. I did have a bit of a problem with Meg. She was a bit wishy-washy in beginning. I like to believe it was because she was starving and wasn't getting enough nutrition to think clearly. She did say she was in a bit of a fog at times.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was enjoyable enough for a fluffy mystery, but I don’t know why it’s a Colonel Jarrett mystery, because Jarrett didn’t really do anything! Too many coincidences and overheard clues, but a good protagonist and initial situation. It’s also one of those mysteries that you later realize doesn’t actually make much sense.

[Elizabeth VanArragon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A page turner, with a romantic ending.

[GeraniumCat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A breath-holding, staying-up-all-night-to-finish romp! Albeit with a slightly slow start.

David Coverdale, who works for the Foreign Office, is just back for good in England. One of the first things he does is to call on Meg O'Hara, the childhood friend he's always loved - she married someone else but it doesn't matter to him. Her husband Robin, an FO agent like David, went missing some time ago and is presumed to have died, so she is now a widow, but has no evidence to prove it. Having recently lost her job she's now without income except from what she can sell. However, she tells David, she's now afraid that Robin is not dead, and is punishing her by "haunting" her, because she had wanted a divorce - she's received messages saying "Alive" and found things in her flat disturbed.

When David reports all this to his boss, Frank Garrett, he's assured that the body found in the river was definitely Robin, but Meg is still unconvinced. And when David takes Meg home to her flat one night he is shot at just after he leaves, while unbeknownst to him, Meg has had a close shave with an intruder. David is at least half-convinced that she is correct about Robin. And, whether dead or alive, he was clearly involved in something very nasty. Meg's safety is now David's paramount concern.

The action moves, with Meg, to a mysterious walled island, with locked gates and and alarming henchmen and a thrilling night-time chase takes place.

I have only read one other book by Patricia Wentworth - for some reason they just don't seem to have come my way – but I’ll certainly be looking for more.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Meg O'Hara had married a charming, handsome Irishman -- who was also a spy -- and she had no one to blame but herself when it didn't work out. But the same day she asked Robin for a divorce, he had disappeared. The foreign office insisted he was dead. So who had left her to newspaper with the letters 'I AM ALIVE' circled in red ... the maple leaf with 'ALIVE' in pinpricks ... and all the other frightening messages that made her both hope and fear that Robin had survived?

"Only her old friend Bill Coverdale believed her. He said he'd help get to the bottom of this mystery, not knowing that his and Meg's investigation was indeed spiraling down ... right into the very depths of a shadowy world of secrets and deception, where knowing too much was ... murder!"
~~back cover

Patricia Wentworth is one of my favorite authors. I love the Miss Silver mysteries, and am branching out into her other books, as I'm able to. This one was pretty formulaic: man in love with woman but has to remain just a friend because woman is tied to another, and that can't change until the mystery -- with all the associated danger -- has been solved. It was a page turner nonetheless, even though it wasn't clear to me why the villains spirited Uncle Henry away & kept him locked up incommunicado.

[M. L. Valard · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars.
A very solid and enjoyable mystery/suspense. A pair of likeable main characters a plot that raced right along. The mystery was just mysterious enough to be quite intriguin and the climax was quite dramatic and entertaining.

I quite liked this story. For something written in the thirties it gave the heroine a decent amount of agency and her point of view and the things she'd been through were very well portrayed. Her husband who may or may not be alive at the beginning of this tale was someone easy to dislike even in memory and the abuse wasn't hard to interpret.

I really liked Bill. He was such a solid, dependable man and kind and clever. My only quibble is the wrap-up after all of it might have felt a teeny bit rushed. Still a solid four stars overall and I'll be reading more by this author too.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Everyone who knows my reading knows I am a fan of Wentworth's Miss Silver mysteries. This was one of the few by her available for download on my Kindle for a trip. There are only two of these Frank Garrett titles, and I will NOT be reading the other one. His character is not very central, and he was obnoxious, I thought, to the others in the book. The other characters were not very sympathetic. It was a quick read, so not a huge loss of quality book time. But the most interesting aspect of the Kindle version is that Frank's name was spelled "Garritt" all throughout, and at first I wondered if there were two different people named Frank. Very strange. Don't bother reading. Miss Silver is much more of a quality personage in her books.

[Suescottmath · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a bit slow at first, but really drew my attention later on. A couple of things I didn’t like about the book: someone really should have proofread the book! So many misspellings…really annoyed me. Would write “bread”, when it was supposed to be “beard”. Just bothers me when editors don’t edit well! “Change” instead of “chance” …very distracting to me! Some of the British phrases are awkward and hard for me to even know what they were saying without just using my context clues and hoping I got it right.

But now the good part: the story was fun and riveting and really made you want to keep reading. (Once you get through to first “dry part”, the rest is very interesting and entertaining). Keep reading; you’ll be glad you did.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically a romance novel with some pretty nasty villains, especially the chameleon-like Maud Millicent Deane Simpson Mannister. She appears in several books before she meets her come-uppance with Maud Silver (who does not appear in this book).

Meg O'Hara is a widow...or not. Is her husband Robin O'Hara dead or alive? We aren't certain. Obviously, this uncertainty is an impediment to the developing love interest with Bill Coverdale.

(Aside: One of the personae Maud Millicent assumes is that of a dowdy, governessy sort of person. I believe Wentworth later went on to develop that character's description--including the clothes and hairstyle--as the private inquiry agent, Maud Silver.)

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

While parts of the story drew me along to want to know how it ended, the journey of getting to that place wasn't the best. I don't know if it was more the era or style of writing, but I found it hard to relate to the main characters. They felt shallow. Other elements, like the setting of the last portion of the book, were intriguing. The plot was also interesting enough, that it could easily be made into a modern thriller. But overall, I expected more than I received from this writer of Agatha Christie's era.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this curiously flat and rather unexciting. I skip read large chunks in order to get to the end.

As I have come to find with mystery/thrillers of this type from the 1930's the pace is all off-too slow to start with, then a breakneck ending.

The hero (was he modelled to an extent on the author's second husband?) and heroine, Bill and Meg, are just slightly too slow to be altogether convincing.

[Valerie]

Like Wentworth's other detective series, the purported main character is rarely to be found. He was less than engaging in the Benbow Smith series, so this isn't a complaint. This entry in the series has an interesting premise, along with the usual mysterious dark passages, complicated family relationships, and dire predicaments. Some of the plot is rather predictable, but in all, this was an enjoyable book.

[Hereswhatsgoingon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure if this would technically be considered a Gothic Mystery, but that's what it felt like to me, with the little hint of the supernatural and a dark, oppressive environment. There was also a romance, and the feel of a thriller, with some spy action. It is remarkable to think this was written more than 85 years ago. For me it was a delight to read, but I can see that not everyone would view it the same way.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Typical young couple in a mystery by Patricia Wentworth, the author of my dear Miss Silver books.

This time the upstanding young hero is Bill, and the damsel-in-danger is Meg O'Hara, a young widow. OR IS SHE? Someone is sending her messages, and it may be her husband, so the big question is IS HE DEAD OR ALIVE?

The baddies are really awful, young Meg is tougher than she seems at first, and Bill is smart, suspicious, and a friend of some important people.

[Jlnpeacock Peacock · Rating 2 out of 5]

Frank Garrett, the supposed hero of the story, appears incidentally and is quite an unlikeable fellow. He doesn’t nothing to solve the mystery. The hero and heroine of the story seem a bit ridiculous in their attitudes toward each other and misunderstandings of each other, especially in light of the fact they’ve known each other for most of their lives. The story was heavy on romance and little on intrigue.

[Suzanne Bratcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Long a fan of Miss Silver mysteries, I was disappointed by this story. I wondered if it was an early book. I found the characters to be flat, the plot line to drag, and the ending to the and admitted deus ex machina. Wentworth has written many other much better stories.Still, I persisted to the end because it was interesting to get a glimpse into the time. In which the story was set. It's amazing how far we have come in the last 100 years.

[L Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really great mystery

Another masterful mystery from Patricia Wentworth, one of the queens of British mystery. This one involves an impoverished heiress whose husband has disappeared, and her uncle writing away in a new home walled in on an island with a very protective new secretary. So good!

[Joann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved the characters Meg and Bill. Meg is trying to find out if Robin, her abusive husband is really dead. Someone is gaslighting her and she is starving because she has no job, no money. She ends up at her Uncle's new home. A really creepy walled in house on a island. The main villain is a master of disguises. There is a very tense chase scene at the end.

[Betsy Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this one quite a bit. Instead of the rambling manor house the setting was an isolated damp and dismal house. Of course there were the star crossed lovers which must be a prerequisite for Wentworth’s novels. Surprised to see the word avatar crop up - always think of that as a current day term.

[M Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is appalling on several different levels. As a mystery, it's obvious what's going on by page 50. As a thriller, the hero and heroine act too foolishly to be believed.

Miss Silver would not have allowed this to drag on for more than 100 pages. Tommy and Tuppence would have behaved much more sensibly and had witty banter.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not your typical Patricia Wentworth mystery. It is more like a psychological thriller, a genre I don't like, so I'll have to give it a 2.
The author never tells us what the little gang of thieves and assassins were up to. Spying was hinted at, but never confirmed.

[Gillian Wiseman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, but seriously dated. I'll continue with the series because I like her writing, but there's nothing particularly outstanding in this story. I did like the house where the bulk of the adventure occurred - and I felt intensely sorry for one of the villains!