Susan in NC’s Reviews > With a Bare Bodkin > Status Update

“Pettigrew pricked up his ears. Eastbury was on his own beloved Southern Circuit. At that moment circuit life appeared to him like an Eden from which he had madly shut himself out. If he could only get away from this dreadful place just for a day or two to the sweet sanity of the circuit mess, he felt that life would be tolerable again.” Tension making everyone miserable!

Terrific foreshadowing about the situation building among the residents: “It was, he felt obscurely, decidedly unhealthy. More particularly, he could not believe that Miss Danville could be kept indefinitely in ignorance of the part assigned to her in what Mrs. Hopkinson had inevitably christened “the Perfect Crime” .”

“Miss Clarke, without looking up from her desk, extended her hand for the file. The gesture was characteristic of her in her more unpleasant moods, and appeared to be designed to emphasize that the staff were machines serving the interests of the Pin Control, rather than human beings.” Yikes!

“The discovery that Mr. Wood “wrote” had, in fact, caused the liveliest interest among the inhabitants of the Fernlea Residential Club. It was, it must be admitted, an interest for the most part untempered by any knowledge of the works of Amyas Leigh. Each member of the little society, however, felt it necessary at least to give some explanation for not having hitherto read them.” Did author experience this?

Just starting chapter 2, enjoying the dry humor and Hare’s writing-sets the stage wonderfully with describing London air raids, his move into war work. I enjoy Francis Pettigrew’s self-deprecating humor, and his descriptions of the place he’s been moved to on the Pin Board