Out of the Past

Carmona is lucky not to marry Alan Field. Charming though he may be, the young man is a rascal, and though her heart breaks when he disappears on the eve of their wedding, she is surely much better off. By the time she learns that Alan has decamped for South America, she has already given her heart to a more deserving suitor.

Several years later, Alan reappears—desperate for money and as charming as ever. An author is writing a biography of Alan's late father, and it is up to the prodigal son to go through his father's letters. He finds a bundle of scandalous correspondence and begins to form a plan. It begins as blackmail but quickly spins out of control. By the time the first body appears, the prim detective Maud Silver is already on the case.

Praise for the writing of Patricia Wentworth:

"Miss Wentworth is a first-rate storyteller." — The Daily Telegraph

"Patricia Wentworth has created a great detective in Miss Silver, the little old lady who nobody notices, but who in turn notices everything." —Paula Gosling, CWA Gold Dagger Award winner

"Some of the best examples of the British country-house murder mystery." — Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine