Review: WEEKEND WITH DEATH, Patricia Wentworth

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• first published 1941, titled UNLAWFUL OCCASIONS
• Republished 2016
• review copy provided by Dean Street Press
• File Size: 1194 KB
• Print Length: 239 pages
• Publisher: Dean Street Press (June 16, 2016)
• Publication Date: June 16, 2016
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B01H7J6KFU

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

She held the candle steady and, stooping, touched the smeared patch with the tip of her finger.

The stain was blood.

When Sarah Marlowe, secretary to the president of the New Psychical Society, touches the cold, strange object in her hand-bag, she thinks at first it is a snake. As things turn out, it is almost as dangerous.
Her travelling acquaintance, Emily Case, has been murdered by someone who won’t hesitate to kill again to obtain the contents of Sarah’s bag. Unwilling to join the spirit world herself, Sarah enlists the aid of a handsome if not entirely trustworthy stranger, John Wickham. Together they must scrabble to solve the mystery—and outwit a murderer.

Weekend with Death was originally published in 1941. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

My Take

WEEKEND OF DEATH is a novel of it's time, set during World War II. Note it is NOT a Miss Silver novel.

It is a novel of almost Gothic overtones, set in a run down English country house that has no electricity or running water. Sarah Marlowe goes there for the weekend with her employer, Wilson Cattermole and his eccentic sister Joanna, in pursuit of ghostly emanations.

Sarah finds herself with people who are prepared to murder for the papers she is carrying. In fact she knows that at least one person, the woman who gave them to her in a train station two nights earlier, has already died and she is not sure who in the house she can trust.

Like many Golden Age stories this is a tale full of coincidences which the reader just has to accept as "normal".  Sarah Marlowe is one of those young women who don't like being told what to do, and constantly gives in to curiosity.

My Rating: 4.2

I've also read
4.1, GREY MASK
4.4, THE TRAVELLER'S RETURN

About the Author

Patricia Wentworth (1878–1961) was one of the masters of classic English mystery writing. Born in India as Dora Amy Elles, she began writing after the death of her first husband, publishing her first novel in 1910. In the 1920s, she introduced the character who would make her famous: Miss Maud Silver, the former governess whose stout figure, fondness for Tennyson, and passion for knitting served to disguise a keen intellect. Along with Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, Miss Silver is the definitive embodiment of the English style of cozy mysteries.