Find Me a Villain

Rating:
Summary: Tame and inoffensive, but no way a crime book
Review: Some crime writers are just too understated for readers keen on continuous blood, gore and action - Patricia Highsmith comes to mind, a writer with whom this author has been (inaccurately) compared. This is the only Margaret Yorke book I've read, and I just don't get the purpose of it.

The book centers around Nina, a passive, restrained Englishwoman of small horizons - just the kind of person who might read this book, in fact. Stunned by her husband's desertion of her for the predatory and pregnant "Miss Kitty-Cat", Nina accepts a house-sitting job at an obligatorily creepy English Manor house. She gets anonymous phone calls, suspects someone of some murders that are happening at the time, discovers a family secret, sees an accidental death - and that's it.

Margaret Yorke writes well, and makes us understand her characters, despite a plot so bland it just passed me by - she has written heaps of books, so maybe this one is just an aberration. There's none of the intricate detail and plotting of PD James, but if you want a gentle and genteel female self-discovery book with just a hint of murder in the background, then you might enjoy this. But if you want suspense and excitement, read elsewhere.