The Trap

by Mary Jane Staples

Jamie Blair had managed to survive the First World War and now lived with the Mullins family. The lodgings were cheap, but Henry Mullins was a mean, brutal man. When, in a violent altercation with seventeen-year-old Kitty, he fell down the stairs and died, no-one was sorry. Jamie, just for a few days, stepped in and helped the kids where he could. Too late he realized he had walked into a trap - for Kitty, who began to look quite pretty when she was well fed and neatly dressed, saw their lodger as the answer to all their problems.

359 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Mary Jane Staples is a pseudonym used by British author Reginald Thomas Staples (1911-2005). He is also published under the name Robert Tyler Stevens, R.T. Stevens, and James Sinclair.

Reviews

[Rhona Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A goodish book.

In this book we follow Jamie Blair and his life in Walworth. How he inveigles himself into the household, finding himself responsible for the step children of the man of the house, after he dies. The police think it suspicious and act accordingly. We have the awful step father's sister just as bad, and she gets her own come uppance.
Not for me as good as the Adams family books but good enough. Nothing bad about it. Usual humour that you find in her books.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a string of lacklustre reads, this was just my drop. Better plotted than the Adams Family series, the familiar crosstalk is here but with more actual story and less feeling you've walked into an episode of The Archers in the East End. It was a cosy cup of tea of a book that I thoroughly enjoyed. Thanks to the Internet Archive for this gem.

[Lynn Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable read.