Lady Anne Jocelyn is back from the dead. It had been 3 ½ years. She and Philip were newlyweds and just starting out. She can’t wait to see her husband and let him know he isn’t a widower. She had been in France to see her half-sister, Miss Annie Joyce. The three, Anne, Philip and Annie, had been caught in a military action and one lady was severely injured and declared dead.

Anne also can’t wait to once more be in the family home, Joycelyn’s Holt. What she does find is a tombstone with her name on it and a cold welcome from the family, even her husband Philip.

Immediately Philip doesn’t believe it is Anne who has returned. He distinctly remembers carrying Anne’s body, during the escape in France. He, Anne and Annie were caught in gun fire. One of the ladies was hit and died in Philip’s arms. The other disappeared. The newly arrived Anne says Philip remembers it wrong and asks for six months to prove she is who she says she is. Something is a little off kilter to Philip, but he agrees to try a six month trial.

When two murders happen, Miss Silver is called in to make sense of things and whether Philip’s theory is right about the returned Anne. Through observation and listening to talk, Miss Silver untangles the web.

Another mystery in the Miss Silver mystery series. Along the lines of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. A good read. ( )

Mistaken identity, deliberate impersonation or a plot by German intelligence

It's 1940, and beautiful, newly married heiress Anne Joyce quarrels with her husband and hies off to France to help some relatives who have gotten trapped there in the German occupation. Husband Philip comes after her, and in the late-night confusion of a German ambush on the beach where they are attempting to escape, Anne is killed.

Or is she? Three years later she comes strolling back into Philip's life in England, swearing that he mistook her cousin for herself and buried the wrong woman. Everyone is dumbstruck and seems to believe her without many reservations, except Philip. But even he is forced to concede the truth when she reveals knowledge about their honeymoon that no one but Anne could know ...

It all sounds a bit Days of Our Lives, doesn't it? A nice soapy plot complete with mistaken identities, the dead coming back to life, complicated family relations, romantic entanglements, and a soupçon of espionage to flavor the soup soap opera. It takes all of Miss Silver's ingenuity to untangle the mess, which she gets drawn into after encountering a peripheral player in the drama. (And she meets the woman randomly on the train, of course, where she seems to spend most of her time just riding back and forth and soliciting clients. Such a strange little woman!)

I'm not afraid to admit that I had trouble following the intricacies of the family lineage that led to their being an Anne Jocelyn (beautiful, rich, maybe dead) and her cousin Annie Joyce (beautiful, poor, maybe alive). Deciding to pretend it was a television soap opera that I was tuning in to in the middle of the fifth season helped reconcile me to the confusion, and after that I was able to enjoy Miss Silver's setting everyone straight. The eventual solution seemed blindingly obvious to me, but I guess if you were living through it — and a World War at the same time — you can be excused for being gobsmacked by the whole thing.

N.B. The original UK title is The Traveller Returns, if you're looking for it across the pond. For a change I prefer the US title, though neither of them are brilliant. ( )

I chose this for my participation in the Crime Fiction of the Year challenge for 1945 found over at Past Offences. There is a little conflicting evidence about the date of publication so I have gone with the date on Fantastic Fiction.

The setting is England 1943. As far as Philip Jocelyn was concerned his wife Anne had been killed in France by a German bullet in 1940 and her body was buried in the local churchyard at Jocelyn's Holt. So when a woman claiming to be Anne turns up at the house at Jocelyn's Holt he can't believe it is her. The rest of the family are taken in by her stunning resemblance to Anne and to her detailed knowledge of the family. But if this woman is impersonating his wife, why is she doing it?

Miss Silver meets a woman on a train who is travelling to London to meet Lady Jocelyn. She says she will know whether this is truly Anne Jocelyn or not. And then she is found dead.

While the police sergeant is fan of Maudie Silver's, his boss doesn't come out of it too well as he is always read to accept the easy solution to a problem. He sees Miss Silver as an interefering old biddy, always turning up where she is not really needed. Of course it is Miss Silver who eventually solves the case.

A nice cosy read. ( )

This one was more fun than some of the others. Not quite as predictable and I liked the characters for the most part.