Madam, Will You Talk?

Rating:
Summary: Madam Still Talks the Talk
Review: As I have always wondered why the BBC has not produced any of Ms. Stewart's wonderful novels as mini-series for public television, I cannot help but imagine how media rich such a production would be. Case in point, Ms. Stewart's first work of suspense fiction: "Madam Will You Talk?" Her heroine, Charity Shelbourne is instantly likeable--a WW2 war widow who lovingly carries a framed photo of Johnny, her fallen RAF pilot in her suitcase,gladly expends time from her own holiday to entertain a lonely 14-year-old boy and honestly is confident enough about her own looks to admit when another woman is breathtakingly beautiful. True to her name and her noble instincts, Charity plunges unwittingly yet rather intelligently into a post war intrigue involving the estranged boy, his agressively tenacious father and the boy's lovely yet frightened stepmother using all the wit and willpower that made the British so heroically stoic through WW2. The characters play against the lush backdrop of the walled hilltop villages of Avignon and Nimes and eventually the cosmopolitan splendour/squallor of Marseilles which we see, smell and hear from the passenger side of Charity's car in a chase sequence more harrowingly memorable than that in the film "The French Connection". Ms . Stewart delivers not only a nicely summed up tale of greed and murder, but neatly fills Charity's emotional void and our own as she allows Charity to utilize Johnny's devil-may-care driving tips, rebel savvy and masculine assuredity through each twist of the plot on her way to finding her way in the world without him while opening her heart to someone else. She is a woman all women want to be: vulnerable yet indispensible. The essential ingredients are all there for a most wonderful episodic film about a wily 20th century woman--get those cameras rolling! Highly recommended, especially in the unabridged audio format.

Rating:
Summary: "Headlong urgency of action"
Review: As much for the times about which it is written as for the adventure into which a young war widow stumbles while on holiday in France with her best friend.

It is about a boy & his dog, a father & his quest for his son & a painting for which people have killed.

Woman's Hour on BBC radio was serializing Madam, Will You Talk? when I was packing to emigrate to America & I bought a copy to take with me because I had to know how it turned out.

Mary Stewart's adventure books about young women tossed into dangerous adventures are always well written, well researched & give you a taste of the countries in which they are set.

Rating:
Summary: Light fiction doesn't get more literate than this
Review: Bedtime reading was so much more intelligent a few decades ago! Mary Stewart's heroines inevitably speak second or third languages, quote the classics, and behave gracefully in social situations (no Bridget Jones idiocy for these ladies). This book, Stewart's first, is one of my favorites, due to a couple of sharply written car chases where the heroine thoroughly trounces her assailant. Charity Selbourne fits the 1950s female stereotype in a lot of ways: a former French teacher at an all-girls school, she was married to an RAF pilot killed in the War, is now a comfortably-off widow, and is by her own admission used to "dictatorial" men. But she also drives like a bat out of hell, and with a combination of logic and intuition she pieces together the plot's central mystery, which had previously eluded the male leads. Stewart has a gift for creating smart, sympathetic female characters who are suprisingly effective within the strictures of their era. No one can beat Stewart in the atmosphere department, either; here, she draws an evocative, moody backdrop for the tightly knit plot, moving her characters through the Roman ruins and medieval villages of Southern France. This book is a welcome antidote to much of popular fiction today, and a great introduction to an author who should not be forgotten.

Rating:
Summary: Light fiction doesn't get more literate than this
Review: Bedtime reading was so much more intelligent a few decades ago! Mary Stewart's heroines inevitably speak second or third languages, quote the classics, and behave gracefully in social situations (no Bridget Jones idiocy for these ladies). This book, Stewart's first, is one of my favorites, due to a couple of sharply written car chases where the heroine thoroughly trounces her assailant. Charity Selbourne fits the 1950s female stereotype in a lot of ways: a former French teacher at an all-girls school, she was married to an RAF pilot killed in the War, is now a comfortably-off widow, and is by her own admission used to "dictatorial" men. But she also drives like a bat out of hell, and with a combination of logic and intuition she pieces together the plot's central mystery, which had previously eluded the male leads. Stewart has a gift for creating smart, sympathetic female characters who are suprisingly effective within the strictures of their era. No one can beat Stewart in the atmosphere department, either; here, she draws an evocative, moody backdrop for the tightly knit plot, moving her characters through the Roman ruins and medieval villages of Southern France. This book is a welcome antidote to much of popular fiction today, and a great introduction to an author who should not be forgotten.

Rating:
Summary: A favourite,captivating,a beautiful romance/mystery novel.
Review: Few authors can tell a story that weaves a spell the way Mary Stewart does. I recently reread all my Mary Stewart books which I'd first read more than 20 years ago. This book was hard to put down. Despite the passage of time, you can't help getting involved...who can you trust when a child's safety is at stake?

Rating:
Summary: a literary romance
Review: I first read Mary Stewart as a teenager with her Merlin series, and it left such an impression on me that when I recently saw at a library book sale that she had other books I immediately picked them all up. Stewart is a master writer (and I didn't know she published in the 50's) who informs you as she writes, with eloquent references to geography, literature, and art. The story is about an attractive heroine who is thrown into close quarters with a man who may or may not be a murderer, who wants her to divulge the location of his young son. Like a play with a cast of characters, she is staying at a hotel that has a variety of people for whom you do not know what their real motives are. If you want a suspenseful romantic novel, you could not do better than Mary Stewart.

Rating:
Summary: The Once and Forever Queen of Romantic Suspense
Review: Nobody does it better. Nobody ever will. Even in this, Stewart's first novel, her prose is so compelling that you overlook some of the new-author awkwardness. Some scenes go on too long, and her fascination with cars/driving/car chases (a staple in each of her books) can get a bit tiresome. But you only notice that on your third or fourth reread. It's a shame that romance novels aren't permitted to be intelligent nowadays; authors are expected to write at a junior-high school comprehension level. No such rules in Stewart's day, and that's why she'll never be bested.