Uncle Paul: Welcome to the Nightmare Summer Holiday

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These two sisters confront the fact that in the past they had feelings for a certain Uncle Paul - who was sent to prison for bigamy and the murder of his first wife - it's on the back cover!

Meg joins them on holiday by the sea, where Mildred is staying in the cottage where she found out her husband, Paul, had tried to murder his first wife over fifteen years ago.Celia Fremlin (1914–2009) was born in Kent and spent her childhood in Hertfordshire, before studying at Oxford (whilst working as a charwoman). It’s exactly what I said—now she’s back in the comforts of civilisation, she can’t be bothered any more with footsteps and shadows from the past. So, with the hapless Isabel struggling to calm Mildred down, Meg feels pressured into making the trip to the coast to sort everything out.

A mysterious / unknown past isn’t particularly unusual in a crime novel, but the speculation about age is cleverly woven into the storyline. With rare exceptions such as bank holidays, the book group meets on the first Wednesday of every month at 7. I must admit however, that this was my least favourite of the few books I've read by her; The Hours Before Dawn is the best one I've read so far, and I plan to read more sooner rather than later. This exhausting topic, which was apt at the best of times to reduce Isabel to quivering uncertainty, seemed on this occasion to be straining her powers of decision almost to the point of paralysis.

The descriptions as indeed all the asides the characters made were fascinating, like a painting made of words. She is good at making ordinary domestic situations frightening by slowly turning up the tension and playing on all our fears.