Halloween Bingo 2025
This is a typical Mary Stewart novel. You can count on beautifully described environments, in this case the Greek isle of Corfu. Also standard is a lovely young woman with definite opinions and more curiosity than is healthy for her. Add two attractive men, one destined to be the villain and the other the love interest. There's a good tense plot, as Lucy works out what's going on and which of her neighbours is sneaking about doing shady things. (The answer this time is both of them.)
Stewart uses Shakespeare's The Tempest very effectively as a framework to hang the novel on. Each chapter is preceded by a quote from the play, suitable to the action of the chapter and, of course, we have a character named Miranda. Our main character, Lucy, is a very young, out of work actress. She is delighted to find that one of her acting heroes, Sir Julian Gale, is staying nearby. His role in The Tempest is one of his most celebrated and Lucy has seen his performance. She is tremendously pleased to meet him and hear his hypotheses about connections between Corfu and the play. I respect Stewart's confidence that her audience would appreciate these details.
The Ancient Greeks had high regard for dolphins, probably having experience with them pushing people lost at sea towards land (mind you, we don't hear from the folks that they nudged out to sea). They were heralded as saviors and messengers of Poseidon. Stewart proves her excellent education and makes use of this tradition in the first chapters of the novel, by introducing Lucy to a habituated dolphin. She saves it first from an unknown gunman and later rescues it after a stranding. The cetacean definitely repays her kindness later in the action.
Lucy falls in love pretty much instantaneously, following the first kiss that the pair share. (Unlikely, but usual in these gothic mysteries during this time period. Men at this time must have been champion kissers.) At least they get to spend some time plotting together before she goes on a date with the villain to get him out of the way. Stewart's lovely writing makes this trope more palatable than lesser authors. I was surprised to learn that she died quite recently in 2014. I have this melancholic feeling that I could have let her know how much I enjoyed her novels while she was still alive.
I read this for the Romantic Suspense square on my Halloween Bingo card. It is also the 19th book in my 2025 Read Your Hoard Challenge.
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