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About the author: Kathleen Moore Knight (1890-1984) is one of my absolute favorite authors. She wrote 34 mystery novels, most set on fictional Penberthy Island off Massachusetts, all published by the Crime Club; with a few under the pseudonym of Alan Amos. See my post All I Know about Kathleen Moore Knight, as well as this Wikipedia article and her booklist on Fantastic Fiction.
Major characters:
John "Jocko" and Helena (Roberts) Myrick
Nella, their grandaughter
Peter Clothier, Nella's' fiancé
Lee Halstead, John's friend
Henry Clark, young groundskeeper and handyman
The sorority sisters:
- Miss Frances Furlong
- Ruth (Gale) Grant (married to Fitzhugh Grant)
- Lucy Kenyon (married to Jerome "Jerry" Kenyon)
- Claire (Fielding) Cutler, a widow
- Elinor (Carrington) Mace, a widow
Locale: Penberthy Island, Massachusetts
Synopsis: Helena Myrick has invited five of her sorority sisters to her home on Penberthy Island following their 40th class renion. Her husband John "Jocko" Myrick had, 40 years ago, dated all of them at one time or another. Also living with them is their granddaughter, Nella, who parents are dead. Nella is engaged to local Peter Clothier.
The scene shifts to John's study as an unnamed woman enters and pulls a gun on John, stating she had been waiting forty years for this moment, wants to kill him and Helena, and take Nella for herself; for reasons not quite clear. She shoots him dead, placing the gun in his hand to make it appear a suicide.
Elisha Macomber comes on the scene, and immediately suspects foul play. While he and young Henry Clark are getting the background on the five sorority sister guests, the scene changes to Helena's bathroom, where John's killer confronts her, first attempts poisoning (with DDT!) and ultimately drowns her in the bathtub. Now the motive is becoming clear, and the Myrick estate is now inherited by Nella. Or is it? The plot thickens when Nella's only link to her parents - a framed photograph - disappears. Then Peter Clothier is attacked as well.
Review: This book was quite startling, as on two occasions, we have a play-by-play description of two murders, without revealing the killer's identity - other than that of a woman, and inferred by her conversation that she is known to the victims, and one of the sorority sisters.
All five of the women are quite catty and vindictive, and had any of them been the killer, that would have been all right. It did get confusing keeping them straight as various movements and motives were explored.
Elisha did his best, as usual, but the real star of the narrative turned out to be young handyman Henry Clark, who becomes Elisha's enthusiastic operative.
The use of a "DDT bomb" had me cringing, especially when the thing was used indoors for insect control!
Please also note one instance of the n-word, in a colloquial expression about a woodpile.
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