The Cannibal Heart

by Margaret Millar

Mrs. Wakefield returns to her home after the mysterious death of her son and the suicide of her husband

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Mystery

207 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

Margaret Ellis Millar (née Sturm) was an American-Canadian mystery and suspense writer. Born in Kitchener, Ontario, she was educated there and in Toronto. She moved to the United States after marrying Kenneth Millar (better known under the pen name Ross Macdonald). They resided for decades in the city of Santa Barbara, which was often utilized as a locale in her later novels under the pseudonyms of San Felice or Santa Felicia.

Millar's books are distinguished by sophistication of characterization. Often we are shown the rather complex interior lives of the people in her books, with issues of class, insecurity, failed ambitions, loneliness or existential isolation or paranoia often being explored with an almost literary quality that transcends the mystery genre. Unusual people, mild societal misfits or people who don't quite fit into their surroundings are given much interior detail. In some of the books we are given chilling and fascinating insight into what it feels like to be losing touch with reality and evolving into madness. In general, she is a writer of both expressive description and yet admirable economy, often ambitious in the sociological underpinnings of the stories and the quality of the writing.

Millar often delivers effective and ingenious "surprise endings," but the details that would allow the solution of the surprise have usually been subtly included, in the best genre tradition. One of the distinctions of her books, however, is that they would be interesting, even if you knew how they were going to end, because they are every bit as much about subtleties of human interaction and rich psychological detail of individual characters as they are about the plot.

Millar was a pioneer in writing intelligently about the psychology of women. Even as early as the '40s and '50s, her books have a very mature and matter-of-fact view of class distinctions, sexual freedom and frustration, and the ambivalence of moral codes depending on a character's economic circumstances. Her earliest novels seem unusually frank. Read against the backdrop of Production Code-era movies of the time, they remind us that life as lived in the '40s and '50s was not as black-and-white morally as Hollywood would have us believe.

While she was not known for any one recurring detective (unlike her husband, whose constant gumshoe was Lew Archer), she occasionally used a detective character for more than one novel. Among her occasional ongoing sleuths were Canadians Dr. Paul Prye (her first invention, in the earliest books) and Inspector Sands (a quiet, unassuming Canadian police inspector who might be the most endearing of her recurring inventions). In the California years, a few books featured either Joe Quinn, a rather down-on-his-luck private eye, or Tom Aragorn, a young, Hispanic lawyer.
Sadly, most of Millar's books are out of print in America, with the exception of the short story collection The Couple Next Door and two novels, An Air That Kills and Do Evil In Return, that have been re-issued as classics by Stark House Press in California.

In 1956 Millar won the Edgar Allan Poe Awards, Best Novel award for Beast in View. In 1965 she was awarded the Woman of the Year Award by the Los Angeles Times. In 1983 she was awarded the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America in recognition of her lifetime achievements.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Closer to 4.5 but wow what an ending. The "mysteries" behind this tale are easily solved, but the real reason to read this, as in many Margaret Millar novels, is the portrait of a monster trying to preserve a facade of normalcy surrounding the things she loves and destroying everything in her path to attain it. If you have a sensitivity towards the treatment of persons with special needs, especially in the middle of the 20th century, you may want to avoid this.

[Carla Remy]

From 1949
I read maybe a third of this and stopped. It's all kids and child raising and dead starfish and arguing couples. Very well written, and maybe there was a murder in the past.

[Faith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Took too long to get to anything interesting.

[Dna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not Shirley Jacksonesque at all.

[Arthur Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. The pacing is very deliberate and it takes a long time really getting anywhere. The characters are well-drawn, as they generally are in a Margaret Millar novel and, as usual, she doesn't seem to be going out of her way to make any of them sympathetic, they're just people. It isn't really a failure, one gets the impression this story is exactly what the author wants it to be. In any event, the thing is quietly engaging and almost like a straight novel, that is, not a crime story. But I had the sense all along that this WAS a crime story; it just took a long time to find out if I was right.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another Millar. Another good read. The woman knows when and how to end a book.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-written mid-century noir.

[Maryanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well written, quick read, great dialogue and psychological character descriptions, disturbing story with weak plot. Not one of my favorites of her many excellent books.