Laura Fane has come up to London to meet with the solicitors about her inheritance, which she receives at her 21st birthday. She is staying with Miss Sophie Ferrers, a family member. While there she meets other members of her family for the first time.

Her cousin, Tanis, who is close in age to Laura, also has the reputation of stealing boyfriends. Cousin Agnes Fane, who raised Tanis after both her parents died, has been renting the Priory, the family estate, from the trust. Cousin Agnes invites Laura to spend a weekend at the Priory so they can meet and Laura can see the property. Agnes also plans to put pressure on Laura to buy the Priory.

Since Laura has never seen the property, she is excited to be invited and also meet the rest of the relatives. Among the guests is Carey Desborough, who is rumoured to be engaged to Tanis, per Cousin Agnes. When Laura and Carey meet it is instant attraction, but Laura is hesitant as she knows of the engagement. What she finds out is there is no engagement, but she is still shy. When Agnes learns of the attraction between Laura and Cary, it stirs up bitter memories from her personal past.

Tanis is found murdered and a number of people have strong motives for the murder. Among the guests is Miss Maud Silver, a friend of the family from years back, and also a very able detective.

Miss Silver mysteries are similar to Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple; an older woman who has studied human behaviour and has an eye for detail. An enjoyable read. ( )

When Laura Fane became of age, she is invited by her relations to visit the Priory, the home she rents out to them. Invited so that she can be persuaded by her cousin Agnes to sell the Priory, so Agnes can leave it to a relation Tanis Lyle. But Tanis has many enemies, most women hated her while the men found her irresistible. Of course Miss Silver is already a guest at the Priory on a different case.
A decent mystery set during WW2 with Miss Silver more involved. ( )

This was an interesting story although a little dated. Miss Silver, retired governess, doesn’t assist but directs the police inspector in the right direction to solve the case. Family secrets and resentments come to a head during a house party. There’s an assortment of guests --One cousin who legally owns the house and another one who doesn’t want it willed to her and one of them is murdered. ( )

What a complete and utter pleasure to read this fifth entry in the long-running series, especially after the ghastliness of the fourth. Took about four hours to get sucked in, bash the touchscreen of my Kindle in a fever of impatience to see if I was right about the perp (missed it), and bask in the glow of Miss Silver as she first came to my attention.

The real reason series readers read the series is to visit with old friends. Miss Silver, to this point, hasn't been a solid character in the stories. She's developed the mannerisms (that effin' cough) by now, and Author Wentworth now begins to fill in the character that will carry the books through more than 20 entries to come.

If you're just starting to think about reading these books, I'd recommend starting here. Miss Silver is finally herself, not merely a collection of tics and crotchets. Nothing from earlier books, nothing of significance, is needed to appreciate the storytelling voice and the newly developed manner of Miss Silver being in the picture from the start, as it is in more modern series mysteries.

Now about that storytelling voice...I've been schooled recently on how very unladylike it is of me to express disapprobation of female storytellers' failings as I see them. I will herewith attempt to make my distastefully male grunts of dissatisfaction and displeasure into a more lady-friendly tone.

Author Wentworth is a person of a particular time, one in which ladies were either hard and evil or soft and good. Women, that is to say the serving class female, could be both hard and good (or soft and evil, which is far far more common {pun intended} for them to be) but only because theirs was a, well, a tougher row to hoe than a lady's was. So ladies were always attempting to marry or kill someone of either, often both, genders. Coupling up is de rigueur in a Miss Silver mystery. The sleuth is a former governess and therefore is hard and good, and frequently acts as a distressed, helpless, lovely young lady's proxy in the scuffling conflicts of quotidian battles to secure her money and her man.

This is jarring to my sensibilities. I don't think it makes the books unreadable, as do some other bygone horrors like racism and homophobia; but I am not a woman and I don't know what would make a story unreadable to one. As Author Wentworth began her career as a 1920s romance novelist of the Mills & Boon/Harlequin school I am inclined to roll my eyes and pass on by the ridiculous guff. There are countervailing pleasures in this read. Ma'at is maintained here by the perp being caught, the lovers being united, the benefits of class and cash being ladled into the bowls of the Best Sort, Our Kind of People.

Socially regressive it might be, well it certainly is if I'm even somewhat honest, but a pleasure it also is. Seeing the patterns we've grown up treading upheld is a validation of our conditioning. It's a good thing for society when someone so far outside the norm as to be a murderer is prevented from killing again. In this case, the murderer kills twice; the second murder is one of those where the reader is expected to murmur "well, shame on them but really asking for it means no complaining when one gets it," and pass on.

So that, dear reader, is what I most want you to know before launching your good self onto these placidly stormy waters.

I do hope that was better than my raw and honest responses have proven to be. ( )

This is the story of Laura Fane, whose parents died while she was quite young and left her a historic estate called The Priory. Laura didn’t have the funds required to maintain The Priory, so was forced to lease it to her wealthy Aunt Agnes. Now that Laura has turned 21 and gained her inheritance she has come to the Priory to determine if she wants to inhabit or sell it to her Aunt Agnes and her other niece Tanis Lyle. Laura soon discovers there is family bitterness over old wounds, and this bitterness is personified most strongly by Tanis Lyle. Tanis is known for stealing other women’s boyfriends, then unceremoniously dumping them. We soon realize that Tanis has many enemies who could happily kill her. And dead she turns up.

As it happens, Miss Maud Silver, amateur detective is already a guest at the Priory. And, the Superintendent sent to investigate the murder was a young charge of Miss Silver when she was a governess. So the investigation proceeds with lively exchanges between these two. Miss Silver gently chiding her “dear Randall” over his hasty judgments and guiding his efforts — all while clicking away on her knitting needles. The Priory setting is beautifully rendered and Laura is a nicely developed character. There are plenty of suspects from jilted boyfriends, to angry ex-girlfriends, to a pilfering maid.
I was totally engaged by this mystery. The suspects are characters in and of themselves. I enjoyed them all, but also tried ascertain their motives, could they have done the deed?
I had a great time with Miss Silver and the Superintendent, as we solved the crime — actually they solved it — I still hadn’t quite figured out in the end.

Stereotypical? Certainly. Similar to Miss Marple series? Of course.

I’ve learned the 1920’s Miss Silver series, while lesser known than Ms. Christie’s, set the standard for cozy mysteries solved in old estates, with lots of fun characters, cups of tea, and charming old (OK Older) ladies who knit.
Count me in any day. See more at http://www.bookbarmy.com ( )