The Miss Silver Mysteries Volume Eight: Out of the Past, The Silent Pool, Vanishing Point, and The Benevent Treasure

by Patricia Wentworth

The British governess-turned-sleuth cracks the case in four puzzling mysteries from the “timelessly charming” series (Charlotte MacLeod). Retired governess and teacher Maud Silver has a new private detective. And though she may seem a kindly and demure pensioner, she can solve crimes right alongside the best Scotland Yard has to offer in this charming series from “a first-rate storyteller” (The Daily Telegraph).  Out of the Alan Field is a charming, handsome young man with a predilection for causing trouble and breaking hearts. But when he learns that an author is writing a biography of his late father, it’s up to Alan to go through his father’s letters—where he finds a bundle of scandalous correspondence and forms a plan. It begins as blackmail and ends with a dead body. And that’s where Miss Silver comes in.  The Silent Actress Adriana Ford is afraid—and with good reason. Someone is trying to kill her. So she goes to Miss Silver for help finding out who wants her dead. It could be a stalker, an obsessed fan, even her own family. Then, a body is found at Adriana’s estate, and Miss Silver travels to the countryside where she learns that Adriana may not have been telling her the whole truth—and that the truth may get her killed.  Vanishing Jenny Maxwell is a bright, young disabled child who writes stories of fantasy. But they are only barely fictional. Trapped in her room for hours at a time, Jenny hears all. She knows about the young woman who disappeared from town, and about the strange young man who works at the nearby military research center. What sounds like harmless gossip could actually be a grave threat to national security—one which only Miss Silver is capable of unearthing.  Benevent As a WWII orphan, Candida Sayle has never considered that she might have a family somewhere. Then she receives a letter from an unheard-of aunt, inviting Candida to rejoin the Benevent family. The young woman ventures to the country, and the environment comforts Candida—as do the attentions of her aunt’s handsome young secretary. But her vacation goes off the rails when death strikes the house, and the brilliant detective Maud Silver joins the party to investigate the possible murder.   These charming traditional British mysteries featuring the unstoppable Miss Silver—whose stout figure, fondness for Tennyson, and passion for knitting disguise a keen intellect and a knack for cracking even the toughest cases—are sure to delight readers of Agatha Christie, Ellis Peters, and Dorothy L. Sayers.    

1160 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 22, 2019

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

[Sandy Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miss Silver hits and misses.

Mostly enjoyable but in some stories in the series, Miss Silver is little more than a sounding board that sits in a chair knitting and listening. When she is actually solving a crime these are quite good tales, but too often she is all but missing. The Benevent story had such potential but sadly was rather, well, blah.

[Heatherinblack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Men were bullies

There is too much “I loved you from the first, you are better with my love, don’t be stupid I am taking care of you” in these books. Did that many people meet and get married a week later and the women not have issues with being punched around? Ok, a different era, but it is really annoying. Miss Silver stuck her personal neck out a time or two. That was nice.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Four more books in the further case files of Miss Maud Silver, retired teacher/governess and now Private Enquiry Agent. As always she appears as a harmless little old lady who loves to knit and listen. This time around she meets some new police officers who have heard of her prowess but have laughed it off. She proves them wrong.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miss Silver mysteries are always enjoyable, although these omnibuses tend to be a mixed bag, perhaps inevitably. The characters who open the mysteries sometimes end up almost disappearing from them, which I find annoying from a craft perspective, but there’s no denying they’re good fun.

[Trenton Twining · Rating 5 out of 5]

More very enjoyable Miss Silver stories.

Four more stories. It amazes me to have found these only after 60
years of reading. Wentworth is a dab hand at characters and at assembling a story. One would expect her name to have been ranked too high to be overlooked.