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The postwar English countryside is rocked by murder and a vanishing corpse in this classic mystery perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.Det. Sgt. Frank Abbot of Scotland Yard thought he'd spend a quiet holiday at his family's estate near the quaint village of Deeping. Instead, he got intrigue and wild tales of a man dragging a horribly murdered girl into the Deeping Woods. Naturally he calls his friend, the private detective Miss Maud Silver, to take a look.
But show more things take a turn when no one can locate the body of the rumored victim, and the only witness suffers a broken neck. One thing is certain, however: The pastoral peace of this town masks something far more sinister.
It's a puzzling turn for Miss Silver, a retired schoolteacher with a fondness for knitting and reading Tennyson who has found a new career as a private enquiry agent—who "has her place in detective fiction as surely as Lord Peter Wimsey or Hercule Poirot" (Manchester Evening News).
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Member Reviews
Actually I liked the plot on this one and while I was "hoping" that the villain turned out to be who it was I didn't see it coming until the end, Loved the idea of the theft on the way out of France during the war. Just wish that the dialogue wasn't so pitiful with the whiney women.
An interesting premise, a woman clearly scared to death claims to have seen a dead body, but no body can be found and the evidence is scant. Has there been a murder, and if so, where's the body? This is also answered by the half-way point and from there it's a fairly conventional murder mystery, with a smattering of romance.
Meh. I enjoyed a few points when it got a bit spooky (but not too much so), but other than that... This is my 2nd or 3rd encounter with the Miss Silver series and I have to say that this will be my last. The mystery itself is ok, but the characters are so flat (especially Miss Silver!!! That's unforgivable) that I don't derive any pleasure from reading.
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Author Information
90+ Works 14,843 Members
Series
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Eternity Ring
- Original title
- Eternity Ring
- Original publication date
- 1948
- People/Characters
- Frank Abbott; Miss Silver; Maud Silver; Grant Hathaway; Cicely Hathaway; Miss Cicely Abbott Hathaway (show all 13); Mark Harlow; Albert Caddle; Mary Stokes; Louise Rogers; Monica Abbott; Alvina Grey; Chief Inspector Lamb
- Important places
- England, UK; Deeping Fen, Lincolnshire, England, UK
- First words
- Maggie Bell stretched out a hand and picked up the telephone receiver.
- Quotations
- As soon as she had gone a little way she let Bramble off the lead and ran with him, old Tumble plodding behind. Bramble was very funny when he ran. His ears flapped, and every now and then he did a sort of spy hop which exten... (show all)ded his view. There might be rabbits, there might be birds, there might be another cat, there might be a weasel or a stoat--there might even be a badger, arch-enemy of his race. Immemorial generations of little hounds bred for hunting the badger stirred in him to sharpen the zest with which he snuffed the air.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"Le mot juste!" he said.
- Blurbers
- Gosling, Paula
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 333
- Popularity
- 94,947
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.58)
- Languages
- Dutch, English, French, German
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 21
- ASINs
- 16
