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Widow's Mite / Who's Afraid
Widow's Mite:
"Tilly feels like a poor relation. She and her young son certainly wouldn't be living with her cousin Sybil unless they had to. But tonight, as usual, Sybil has had too much to drink, and needs to lie down for a bit before her dinner guests arrive. It falls to Tilly to accompany her upstairs, and naturally Sybil asks for one of her pills. There is only one left, but Tilly dutifully fetches it. After that, Sybil seems to fall asleep almost immediately. How is Tilly to know that the pill contains cyanide? Naturally the police are suspicious. But how can she confess that she was the one who gave it to Sybil when there is no one else to protect her son?"
Who's Afraid:
"It all seemed like an exciting new adventure to Susie Alban, selling Gateway's culture program for Mr. Chiswick. But her first appointment goes sour when the husband of her first contact, hearing the name Chiswick, becomes verbally abusive and slams the door in her face. Later that evening, she comes across the body of the husband on the path to her lodging. The police think that Susie is involved. But this is only the beginning of her problems."
"Tilly feels like a poor relation. She and her young son certainly wouldn't be living with her cousin Sybil unless they had to. But tonight, as usual, Sybil has had too much to drink, and needs to lie down for a bit before her dinner guests arrive. It falls to Tilly to accompany her upstairs, and naturally Sybil asks for one of her pills. There is only one left, but Tilly dutifully fetches it. After that, Sybil seems to fall asleep almost immediately. How is Tilly to know that the pill contains cyanide? Naturally the police are suspicious. But how can she confess that she was the one who gave it to Sybil when there is no one else to protect her son?"
Who's Afraid:
"It all seemed like an exciting new adventure to Susie Alban, selling Gateway's culture program for Mr. Chiswick. But her first appointment goes sour when the husband of her first contact, hearing the name Chiswick, becomes verbally abusive and slams the door in her face. Later that evening, she comes across the body of the husband on the path to her lodging. The police think that Susie is involved. But this is only the beginning of her problems."
263 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2018
1 person is currently reading
5 people want to read
About the author
Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
77 books34 followersElisabeth Sanxay Holding (1889-1955) was born and brought up in New York and educated at Miss Whitcombe's and other schools for young ladies. In 1913 she married George Holding, a British diplomat. They had two daughters and lived in various South American countries, and then in Bermuda, where her husband was a government official. Elisabeth Sanxay Holding wrote six romantic novels in the 1920s but, after the stock market crash, turned to the more profitable genre of detective novels: from 1929-54 she wrote eighteen, as well as numerous short stories for magazines. In 1949 Raymond Chandler chose her as 'the best character and suspense writer (for consistent but not large production)', picking The Blank Wall (1947) as one of his favourites among her books; it was filmed as The Reckless Moment in 1949 (by Max Ophuls) and as The Deep End (with Tilda Swinton) in 2001. After her husband's retirement the Holdings lived in New York City. Her series character was Lieutenant Levy. Holding also wrote numerous short stories for popular magazines of the day.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 19, 2018
http://www.crimesegments.com/2018/06/...
It is genuinely a shame that this author's work has been left to fade into obscurity. She was championed by the great Raymond Chandler who referred to her as "the top suspense writer of them all," and that "Her characters are wonderful." Writing in the introduction to this book, Gregory Shepard notes that Holding is
"the precursor to the entire women's psychological suspense genre, and authors like Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell owe her a very large debt of gratitude."
And indeed, we do. I was looking over Amazon reviews of some of Holding's novels, and there was one that complained that Holding should "show, not tell," which sort of threw me for a loop for a minute, since evidently the reader didn't read carefully or just plain missed the point. Holding shows plenty, but it's what goes on in the minds of her characters that holds the most importance in her stories -- as the intro says, it's the "psychological underpinnings" that "form the basis of the mystery." I easily figured that out on my own while reading, since I didn't read this book's introduction until I'd turned the last page.
Without getting too deep into either, both novels in this volume center on the old adage of "oh what a tangled web we weave ..." with the respective main characters hedging about telling the truth about what they know about the crimes in which they become unwittingly involved. They each have their own motivations for doing so and their lies send them down a rather slippery slope, but again, while they know that (quoting the introduction again) that 'There ought to be simply a right thing to do, or a wrong thing,' ..." Holding knows human nature well enough that she also realizes that "this is never the case, that it's never that simple."
While both are great, Who's Afraid? is my favorite of the two, and both seriously and most intensely held me until the last pages. I'll admit that in the cases of both women, I found myself almost yelling at the pages because I was so completely frustrated at times, thinking "why don't you just listen?" or "just tell and get it over with." But Sanxay Holding's not going to let us off so easily here and that's the key to reading her work -- it's all about what's in our characters' heads and all about how their decisions take them nearly to the point of no return, usually at some sort of personal peril or some sort of consequence to the people in their immediate orbit. Quite honestly, I love her books so far -- they may seem somewhat tame in comparison of those of Highsmith or Rendell, but then again, it's very easy to see how she laid the foundations for their work with her own. And now that Stark House Press has made her books once more available, serious crime readers are fortunate to have easy access to them. This woman's legacy and her books deserve much more than to remain sadly forgotten and unread.
Highly recommended.
It is genuinely a shame that this author's work has been left to fade into obscurity. She was championed by the great Raymond Chandler who referred to her as "the top suspense writer of them all," and that "Her characters are wonderful." Writing in the introduction to this book, Gregory Shepard notes that Holding is
"the precursor to the entire women's psychological suspense genre, and authors like Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell owe her a very large debt of gratitude."
And indeed, we do. I was looking over Amazon reviews of some of Holding's novels, and there was one that complained that Holding should "show, not tell," which sort of threw me for a loop for a minute, since evidently the reader didn't read carefully or just plain missed the point. Holding shows plenty, but it's what goes on in the minds of her characters that holds the most importance in her stories -- as the intro says, it's the "psychological underpinnings" that "form the basis of the mystery." I easily figured that out on my own while reading, since I didn't read this book's introduction until I'd turned the last page.
Without getting too deep into either, both novels in this volume center on the old adage of "oh what a tangled web we weave ..." with the respective main characters hedging about telling the truth about what they know about the crimes in which they become unwittingly involved. They each have their own motivations for doing so and their lies send them down a rather slippery slope, but again, while they know that (quoting the introduction again) that 'There ought to be simply a right thing to do, or a wrong thing,' ..." Holding knows human nature well enough that she also realizes that "this is never the case, that it's never that simple."
While both are great, Who's Afraid? is my favorite of the two, and both seriously and most intensely held me until the last pages. I'll admit that in the cases of both women, I found myself almost yelling at the pages because I was so completely frustrated at times, thinking "why don't you just listen?" or "just tell and get it over with." But Sanxay Holding's not going to let us off so easily here and that's the key to reading her work -- it's all about what's in our characters' heads and all about how their decisions take them nearly to the point of no return, usually at some sort of personal peril or some sort of consequence to the people in their immediate orbit. Quite honestly, I love her books so far -- they may seem somewhat tame in comparison of those of Highsmith or Rendell, but then again, it's very easy to see how she laid the foundations for their work with her own. And now that Stark House Press has made her books once more available, serious crime readers are fortunate to have easy access to them. This woman's legacy and her books deserve much more than to remain sadly forgotten and unread.
Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 of 1 review