Tras un ataque de la aviación norteamerricana sobre Libia, un grupo de mujeres acampa en el exterior de una base militar en Gran Bretaña. La profesora universitaria Loretta Lawson se ve involucrada en la investigación de la desaparición de todas esas mujeres.

woman professor on holiday finds body of hostess, murderer unpunished though detected, rather unsatisfactory

This book finds Loretta Lawson, lecturer in English Literature at the University of London, ailing from the effects of a sudden attack of glandular fever. Her close friend Bridget Bennett, with whom Loretta solved the mystery recounted in this book’s predecessor, A Masculine Ending, arranges for her to have the use of a cottage owned by Clara Wolstonecroft, another friend, in which to recuperate.

This proposed respite proves to be less than restful. Having travelled to Oxfordshire, Loretta finds that the previous resident of the cottage has stayed on beyond his planned departure date. Loretta spends the night in the landlord’s house, and learns that the property is close to an RAF base which has recently subjected to public protest after planes based there had been involved in an attack on Libya. (The book was written and set in the mid-1980s). Most local residents are opposed to the protest, as the camp plays a major part in the local economy of the area. However, Clara owns much of the land adjacent to the base, and has given the protesters permission to establish their camp there. Emotions in the local area are running high, and Clara’s house is the subject of vandalism on Loretta’s first evening there, and then the protesters’ camp itself is attacked by a group of violent counter-protesters.

Clara confides in Loretta that she believes that she has been subject to excessive observation by the police and intelligence services. Loretta is initially inclined to dismiss this as general paranoia, but stumbles upon her own evidence that Clara might actually be right. Then things escalate to a new level when Clara is found dead, having been shot.

Joan Smith is very adept at building the tension. Loretta Lawson is an eminently reasonable, and completely empathetic, character, and her reactions are readily believable. This novel is now well over thirty years old but has not suffered too drastic an ageing process, although one section, when Loretta is struggling to contact her journalist ex-husband, John Tracey, and leaving messages for him to call her back at various remote places, did make me stop to wonder how we ever managed to get anything done without mobile phones! ( )