Rolling Stone

Frank Garrett #2

by Patricia Wentworth

A con man named Spike Reilly was dying an agonizing death in a Brussels hotel. Next door, the erstwhile sleuth and wanderer, Peter Talbot, was very much alive. And in a moment of brilliance and madness, Peter knew that he could adopt the dying man's identity and use it as his passport into a dangerous ring of thieves.

Reborn Spike Reilly, Peter followed a trail of coded messages that led first to a well-appointed English manor, a house full of well-appointed guests, and then to the true identity of Spike's employer: Maud Millicent Simpson, England's most deadly woman. After steering him through the theft of a priceless painting, Maud then had a second job for "Spike": kidnap and kill a beautiful young lady. For Spike Reilly it might have been all in a day's work. But for Peter Talbot it meant playing a role within a role within a role - and somehow coming out alive!

Genres: Mystery, Classics, British Literature, Adventure, Ebooks, Cozy, 20th Century

249 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 1940

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

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

J’ai bien aimé ce livre. J’ai cependant vite deviné qui était le cerveau et trouve les deux héros un peu naïfs pour tomber ainsi dans ses pièges. Mais l’histoire est bien menée avec du suspense et des rebondissements. La chute finale est cependant un peu abrupte.

[A.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Talbot was asked by his Foreign Office cousin, Frank Garrett, to keep an eye on a low life. Spike Reilly is suspected of being involved with a gang stealing valuable art in England. In the last robbery, a man was murdered. The butler must have disturbed the robbers at their task. But Garrett wants them taken down because he believes the gang is run by Maude Millicent Simpson. [she featured in Dead or Alive (Frank Garrett #1)]
She is a master of disguise, is terribly clever and utterly ruthless.

“If she’s in this business, she won’t get away again if I can help it. But if she’s in it, you’re up against something—all of us are. She can write any hand, use any voice, impersonate a dozen different types. In these two affairs I’ve been telling you about she passed unquestioned as Mannister’s secretary, a correct and colourless young man—as Asphodel, an exotic type of medium—as Della Delorne, an ex-chorus girl—as Miss Cannock, an old maid secretary—and as Henry Postlethwaite himself. Nobody suspected her in any of these roles. Whatever part she’s playing now, nobody’s suspecting her—you may take that for gospel. She’s a damned sight too clever.”

The rolling stone is the result of a number of small decisions that end up with major consequences. Peter finds Spike dying in his Paris hotel room, notes they look kind of similar and finally ends up standing in an English garden at 2am waiting to be handed a stolen Turner.
But first, he has an extraordinary moment. He’s early and another house guest runs outside and dumps a string of valuable pearls into his hands. She is followed by a young woman who stands him up and demands he give them right back. She is Terry Clive and he finds her vehemence and character most attractive.
But Terry saw something else later. Something she foolishly decides to use to make the art thief return the painting (it worked so well with the pearls). It was an inside job, of course it was. But she’s not definitely able to identify the culprit so she tells each house guest that she will go to the police the next week unless the painting is returned.

Terry walked among the roses, and tried to feel clever and grown-up and practical again. Mr. Applegarth had put her back to ten years old and her first day at a new school. He had called her my dear, and she felt that for twopence he would have patted her on the head. She was very glad indeed to see Fabian Roxley coming towards her, because she was practically sure that Fabian was in love with her, and if anything could make you feel grown-up after being talked to in the most shattering way as if you were a little girl, it would be the company of someone who was at least thirty, and who might propose to you at any moment.

As an extra complication, Fabian is Frank Garrett’s assistant.
Terry is a whole lot naive and has no clue that she has painted a very large bulls eye on herself.
She gets kidnapped, and is held by none other than Peter (as Spike) with two other heavies.

Human beings are very adaptable. By the end of the day Terry was housekeeping. She had a grocery list written out for Jake to take away with him when he went off duty, and she sent the Bruiser back to wipe his feet when he came in wet and muddy. The extraordinary thing was that he went. Peter caught his breath, but the Bruiser went back meekly enough. They heard him scuffing his feet on the mat by the area door. He came, after all, of generations of women who had told their men they wouldn’t have boots like that on a clean scrubbed kitchen floor. Breeding tells.

Bwahaha. Bless her, she still has no clue they are going to kill her.
Maude Millicent is just waiting for Terry’s bruises and needle mark to heal.
***
Peter is a great hero for an accidental spy and a worthy opponent for Maude Millicent. And naturally, Terry falls in love with him.
Wentworth was a contemporary of Christie and I am surprised she isn’t better known. This would have made a great Hitchcock film. He did so love the accidental hero trope.
I really like the way she describes people. This is Fabian:

The man who came in was a long, lazy person, most beautifully dressed. He had a single eyeglass, and fair hair in process of receding from a brow already high. He was, in fact, Mr. Fabian Roxley, and he was a good deal more intelligent than he looked.

Perfect.
4 stars

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early Bird Book Deal | Better than many of Wentworth's espionage books. | Still not great, but works for what it is. Obvious straight through, though, there's not a moment from the time each of two characters are introduced that the reader doesn't know they'll end up the culprits. Weirdly abrupt ending.

[Deena · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the Maud Millicent stories out of order, which was a bit annoying. I enjoyed them more the first time than I have when I've reread them, which is fairly unusual for me with Wentworth.

[Ted Tayler · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A blast from the past!"

This book justs reeks of quality. Great plot, great characters, and great writing. If I had the time, I'd read everything the lady ever wrote.

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read all the Miss Silver mysteries and many of Wentworth’s standalone books, I’ve been delving into her other series. What’s interesting about _Rolling Stone_ is that it finishes a long story arc that carries across another series (the plot originates in _Danger Calling_ and continues in _Walk with Care_, both books in the Benbow Smith series), continues in a stand-alone novel, _Dead or Alive_), and then concludes in this book, a Frank Garrett mystery. I’m impressed by Wentworth’s flexibility—or perhaps its more her publishers’ flexibility, in letting her carry a story across multiple series.

Apart from the detective figure, though, _Rolling Stone_ is a classic Wentworth, with a romance that develops alongside and in connection with the mystery. Here, it’s the unlikely relationship between Peter Talbot, who’s decided to go undercover and pretend to be a small-time gangster named Spike, and the wide-eyed but sassy ingenue Terry Clive, who inadvertently gets caught up in the seedy underworld of international art theft (and attendant blackmail and murder) when a Turner portrait goes missing during a weekend at (what else?) a country house party. Hijinks and romance ensue.

This is a bit darker than many Wentworths—the villain is truly menacing and the resolution is surprising. It took me awhile to get into the rhythm of this; the prose is a little choppy at the beginning. But I ended up really enjoying it, and found it genuinely suspenseful.

[Sep · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful period piece (Written in the 1930s) describing the adventures of Peter Talbot, who infiltrates a band of criminals under the guise of the late Spike Reilly. Between the theft of a Turner, a string of pearls, and a kidnapping, Peter must maintain a careful facade. Then, in true suspense fashion, things get worse. He falls in love with the kidnap victim and finds out the gang's boss is the infamous Maud Simpson. Maud is the villain of several of Miss Wentworth's books and, true to form, is a mistress of disguises and practicing what I would call evil, though the politically correct term is making bad choices.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the more charming non Miss Silver entries in Wentworth's oeuvre. Peter Talbot, an innocent (or undercover man) abroad, finds himself next to his quarry, one Spike Reilly, dying in the next room. When Reilly dies, Peter makes an identity switch, checks in with his boss back in England, and takes on Spike's criminous adventures which lead him into a plot to steal a Turner painting and the kidnapping of a young woman. There's a bad ass lady criminal (one of Wentworth's best villainesses) at the heart of the matter as well as a side bar of young love. A delightful read.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Wentworth's other series, this second Frank Garret entry has very little to do with the supposed detective. The annoying characteristics he displays in previous books are barely evident here when he does put in the occasional appearance, which is definitely to the good. The plot in this book is pretty standard fare for Wentworth, the characters well drawn, if familiar. There aren't too many surprises, but the ending is satisfying nonetheless.

[Jane Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a slow book but the story was good and well told. It kept the pace up which was good and you wanted to find out what happened and why. Slowly working my way through all of Patricia Wentworth’s books.

[Louise d'Abadia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the first Frank Garrett book better, though this is a enjoyable book. The writing is good and the plot is interesting, even though this is not Patricia Wentworth’s best story.

[Carol Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great mystery! The more I read Wentworth's stories, the better they get!

[Cate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable! Wentworth at her finest, a delightful read.

[Joann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this Wentworth novel. Great plot and characters and very suspenseful.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got in one.

Typical Wentworth tale. Miss Silver makes a more engaging character, however. Terry seems just a little too young and silly. Garrett his usual gruff cop. Peter good.

[Nancy Cook-senn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cheeky Peter Talbot goes undercover in the burglary gang and has to help the pretty ingenue escape the gang's kidnap plot. Sassy dialogue, hectic adventures, vivid characters, humor and charm.

[Jessica - How Jessica Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun mid-century British cozy. Starring the evil Maud Millicent Simpson as the villain, the charming Peter Talbot (with a little assistance from Miss Terry Clive) as her opposition.

[Darcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always a solid, enjoyable novelist, Wenworth's writing is somehow comforting to me.

[Evelyn Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thrilling suspense novel!

The plot is always full of twists and turns in a Wentworth mystery, and this is one of her best.