A Miss Silver mystery

There is nothing more deadly than a friend betrayed. There is no doubt in Thomasina Elliott's mind that her oldest schoolfriend is a creature of habit. So when, after three years of regular correspondence, Anna's letters suddenly stop, Thomasina becomes concerned. And even more so when it transpires that her friend has disappeared without trace, in extremely odd circumstances. Fortunately, however, the indomitable Miss Silver is on hand to investigate. Also published as Death at Deep End.

When a broken engagement leads to murder, Miss Silver hunts for the killer. Bill Waring went to America with a bright future ahead of him. In London he had a promising career and the love of a young beauty, Lila Dryden, and there were plans for marriage when he returned from overseas. But then a freak train accident puts their happiness on hold. Bill spends a month in the hospital, and when he finally makes it back to London, there is a still bigger shock awaiting him. Under pressure from a domineering aunt, Lila has become engaged to another. She and her new fiancé—middle-aged, charmless, and rich—are in the country for the weekend. Bill follows, determined to win back Lila’s heart. But when her new betrothed is stabbed to death, blame falls squarely on Bill, and only the brilliant, demure detective Maud Silver can clear his name. Miss Silver Mystery #19

Miss Silver investigates an unhappy family whose brightest beauty has just been poisoned. Lois has always dreamed of being a Latter. The Latter brothers are both so attractive—nearly as handsome as their stately manor, Latter End. After she spoils her relationship with one brother, she succeeds with the other, winning his heart with her good looks and the sizeable fortune she had won in her first marriage. But even after they’ve wed, she never quite fits in with the family. Still, she hardly expects them to kill her. But that’s just what the psychic Memnon warns her of: poison. She laughs it off and so does everyone else, but then, like clockwork, she is dead. The police call it murder. The weapon? Poison, of course. It is a tantalizing case, complicated by the bitterness that infests Latter End, and only the brilliant Maud Silver, once a governess, now a detective, is up to the challenge. Miss Silver Mystery #11

Miss Silver must intervene when an age-old family feud returns with fatal effect. All London loves Tanis Lyle. A beautiful amateur who happened accidentally on a career in the theater, she has just finished filming her first motion picture. Though hardly beautiful, the young woman has electric charm, and seems to hypnotize all who meet her. This is the effect she has on Laura Fane, a distant cousin who has long heard rumors of the great beauty who, because of a long-standing family feud, she has never been allowed to meet. When Tanis’s life is cut short by an unknown hand, Miss Silver hunts for the killer. As she and Laura quickly learn, great beauty invites hate just as readily as it does love.

Miss Silver investigates a disappearance in a village near a top-secret government research facility. Jenny Maxwell is a bright young child. After an automobile accident leaves her barely able to walk, she retreats into a world of fantasy, devouring novel after novel of steamy romance. Now she has begun to write, and for a twelve-year-old she shows great promise. After she sends her work off to a publisher, the house sends a representative to meet the young woman and guide her. But the stories she tells him are hardly fictional. Trapped in her room for hours at a time, Jenny hears all. She knows about the young woman who disappeared from town, and about the strange young man who works at the nearby military research center. What sounds like harmless gossip could actually be a grave threat to national security—one which only private investigator Miss Silver is capable of unearthing.