The Listening Walls - by Margaret Millar (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In this suspenseful masterpiece about corrupted love, Rupert Kellogg's wife, Amy, goes missing after an ill-fated trip to Mexico--and Rupert becomes the focus of a paranoid investigation.

Amy Kellogg is not having a pleasant vacation in Mexico. She's been arguing nonstop with her friend and traveling companion, Wilma, and she wants nothing more than to go home to California and the Bay Area. But an uncomfortable stay in a Mexican hotel takes a nightmarish turn when Wilma is found dead on the street below their room--an apparent suicide.

Rupert Kellogg has just returned from seeing his wife Amy through the difficulties surrounding the apparent suicide of her friend in Mexico. But Rupert is returning alone--which worries Amy's brother. Amy was traumatized by the suicide, Rupert explains, and has taken a holiday in New York City to settle her nerves. But as gone girl Amy's absence drags on for weeks and then months, the sense of unease among her family changes to suspicion and eventual allegations lead to a paranoid investigation.

Review Quotes

PRAISE FOR MARGARET MILLAR

Mystery Writers of America Grand Master
Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel
Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year

"One of the most original and vital voices in all of American crime fiction."
--Laura Lippman

"I long ago changed my writing name to Ross Macdonald for obvious reasons."
--Kenneth Millar (Ross Macdonald), in a letter to the Toronto Saturday Night newspaper

"Very Original."
--Agatha Christie

"Stunningly original."
--Val McDermid

"Millar's mysteries are filled with clever twists, yet what makes them special is her surgical approach to her characters' inner lives. She's got an eagle eye for the juicy stuff lots of mystery writers still ignore--questions of class, status, sexual desire and the difficult position of women. This last was something she knew about firsthand. Millar's work was long overshadowed by that of her husband, detective novelist Ross Macdonald. In fact, her best novels -- like 1955's Beast in View -- have a ferocious edge that make him look rather tame."
--John Powers, NPR's Fresh Air

"One of the greatest this country has ever produced."
--The Globe and Mail

"A writer whose own work is every bit as psychologically bruising and critically acclaimed as that of her husband [Ross Macdonald], if not as well known. But [Syndicate Books] hopes to rectify that with Collected Millar."
--Kevin Burton Smith, Mystery Scene Magazine

"Razor-sharp."
--The Seattle Times

"She has few peers, and no superior in the art of bamboozlement."
--Julian Symons

"Written with such complete realization of every character that the most bitter antagonist of mystery fiction may be forced to acknowledge it as a work of art."
--Anthony Boucher reviewing Beast in View for the New York Times

"Margaret Millar can build up the sensation of fear so strongly that at the end it literally hits you like a battering ram."
--BBC

"Wonderfully ingenious."
--The New Yorker

"Brilliantly superlative... One of the most impressive additions to mystery literature--and the word "literature" is used in its fullest sense."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"In the whole of crime fiction's distinguished sisterhood, there is no one quite like Margaret Millar."
--The Guardian

"A superb writer."
--H.R.F. Keating

"She writes minor classics."
--Washington Post

"Mrs. Millar doesn't attract fans she creates addicts."
--Dilys Winn, namesake of the Dilys Award

About the Author

Margaret Millar (1915-1994) was the author of 27 books and a masterful pioneer of psychological mysteries and thrillers. Born in Kitchener, Ontario, she spent most of her life in Santa Barbara, California, with her husband Ken Millar, who is better known by his nom de plume of Ross Macdonald. Her 1956 novel Beast in View won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. In 1965 Millar was the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year Award and in 1983 the Mystery Writers of America awarded her the Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement. Millar's cutting wit and superb plotting have left her an enduring legacy as one of the most important crime writers of both her own and subsequent generations.