Hand in Glove
A Novel
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
In her seaside cottage, Beatrix Abberley bravely confronts an intruder moments before her life is brutally taken. The crime stuns the elderly spinster’s family—especially Beatrix’s niece, Charlotte Ladram. But Charlotte has little time to mourn the loss of her beloved aunt and little patience when police quickly arrest a man Charlotte believes is innocent. For Charlotte, a harrowing quest for answers begins—one that will take her into the shadows of the past…and into the life and secrets of the dead woman’s brother, famed poet and casualty of the Spanish Civil War, Tristram Abberley.
Now, amid shattering revelations about her family, and in the aftermath of a second savage crime, Charlotte finds herself at the center of a widening storm. And for Charlotte, something extraordinary is beginning to happen. As fifty years of secrets begin to unravel, shy, cautious Charlotte is coming alive in the shadow of a mystery—uncovering a shocking tale of wartime greed and treachery, and a vendetta of violence seemingly without end….
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Stiff, archaic dialogue and an overreaching plot that snakes from contemporary England back to the Spanish Civil War makes this lengthy novel of psychological suspense by Goddard ( Debt of Dishonor ) slow going. The action begins with the murder of 85-year-old Beatrix Abberley, canny sister of England's poet-warrior Tristam Abberley, who died a hero in the Spanish Civil War. On Beatrix's death, four packets of letters revealing a predictable hoax, some depressing truths and a treasure buried since the 1930s are mailed to persons unknown. The dead woman's schoolmarmish niece Charlotte Ladram and bumbling Derek Fairfax, upright brother of an ex-con framed for the murder, set themselves to solving the puzzle of these events. With cardboard characters--a womanizing American biographer, mousy Charlotte and her brassy sister-in-law Ursula--and a string of handy coincidences, Goddard, who signals nearly every twist his story takes, delivers a mediocre effort. Paperback rights to Pocket.
