Fear Stalks the Village - (British Library Crime Classics) by Ethel Lina White (Paperback)

About the Book

"Ambling along the lanes of a sleepy village in the Downs, passing cozy Tudor cottages rustling with wisteria, a novelist imagines the sordid truth hidden behind the quaint, rustic facade. Her musings are confirmed when a spate of anonymous poison pen letters shocks the community, turning neighbor against neighbor and embroiling everyone from the rector and the "queen of the village" Decima Asprey to the high-born Scudamores. With venom in the air, the perpetrator a mystery, and dark secrets threatening to come to light, a shadow of shame and scandal stretches over the parish, with death and disaster following in its wake. Revelling in the wickedness that lies beneath the idyllic veneer of village life, White's 1932 mystery is inventive and a village mystery classic"--

Book Synopsis

It was a model English village, filled with flowers, Tudor cottages, and cobbled streets. Joan Brook loved working there as a companion to Lady d'Arcy, living in the huge mansion with its surrounding park. And small though the village was, it was not too small for Joan to have found a man there whom she could love. Suddenly the peaceful surface of life there is shattered as a poisonous letter is received by the town's most saintly citizen. It is followed by others; no one is safe from the anonymous letter writer. And the letters bring death. In the anguished days that follow, Joan realizes her own danger. For to receive on of these letters could mean the end of her love - and her life!

Review Quotes

"A truly unique mystery, skillfully written and a masterpiece of quiet suspense."--Wonder Woman Sixty

"An anonymous correspondent inundates an English village with poison pen letters in this 1932 mystery."--Kirkus Reviews