The Blank Wall

''The Blank Wall'' (1947) by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (died 1955), public domain outside of the US. Set during World War II, the story follows Lucia Holley, a seemingly ordinary suburban housewife living in a lakeside home near New York. With her husband away serving in the Navy, Lucia is left to manage the household, her eccentric father, and two teenage children alone.

Her quiet life shatters when her 17-year-old daughter becomes entangled with Ted Darby, a sleazy, older man. When Darby is found dead on their property, Lucia moves the body to protect her daughter, unknowingly plunging herself into a desperate web of blackmail, deception, and murder. To preserve her family’s middle-class facade, she must quietly operate like a criminal while acting like a normal housewife, hiding the truth in daily letters to her husband.

A pioneering example of a noir thriller told strictly from a woman's perspective. It highlights the intense pressures of the wartime American home front.