From Publishers Weekly
This slim mystery, a study of the relations between adult children and their parents, rings true in its depiction of the warmth as well as the petty cruelty that exists between generations. In the English village of Taviscombe, writer Sheila Malory, last encountered in Mrs. Malory and the Festival Murder , regularly visits several friends in the West Lodge nursing home. One day, one of them, wealthy Edith Rossiter, disappears. Her bullying daughter, Thelma, voicing her suspicions of her scientist brother, Alan, condescendingly asks Sheila for help. Sheila agrees, even though she has despised Thelma since they were classmates in school. Discovering that a cache of sleeping pills is gone from Mrs. Rossiter's room, Sheila fears suicide, but no further information surfaces until she and her son Michael visit another West Lodge resident, the harridan mother of another old friend. With its delicate detailing of English village life and characters one readily cares about, Holt's tale is a quiet charmer.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Holt delivers another hugely entertaining Mrs. Malory mystery. While visiting several elderly acquaintances ensconced in the West Lodge nursing home, Sheila Malory, a comfortable middle-aged widow with a keen mind and a sharp eye for detail, becomes involved in a missing-persons investigation. When Mrs. Edith Rossiter, a gentle and timid resident of West Lodge, vanishes without a trace during a routine shopping trip, both her friends and the local police are baffled. Since her self-absorbed daughter and her ne'er-do-well son had been forcefully urging Mrs. Rossiter to release large portions of their inheritance, Sheila initially suspects them of conspiring against their mother. But as she delves more deeply into the case, she realizes that her friend's disappearance may have been deliberately staged by the victim herself. With the invaluable assistance of her son, Michael, a young law student, Sheila pieces together a multidimensional puzzle with roots in Mrs. Rossiter's unhappy youth. A diverting novel whose plot features an unexpected, climactic twist.
Margaret Flanagan
