The Shortest Journey : A Sheila Malory Mystery - Softcover

Hazel Holt has many devoted fans in the United States and Great Britain as a writer of "cozy" British mysteries; she has published nineteen Mrs. Malory novels at last count. She is also known to admirers of Barbara Pym as the friend and biographer who additionally edited Pym's posthumous works.

Holt delivers another hugely entertaining Mrs. Malory mystery. While visiting several elderly acquaintances ensconced in the West Lodge nursing home, Sheila Malory, a comfortable middle-aged widow with a keen mind and a sharp eye for detail, becomes involved in a missing-persons investigation. When Mrs. Edith Rossiter, a gentle and timid resident of West Lodge, vanishes without a trace during a routine shopping trip, both her friends and the local police are baffled. Since her self-absorbed daughter and her ne'er-do-well son had been forcefully urging Mrs. Rossiter to release large portions of their inheritance, Sheila initially suspects them of conspiring against their mother. But as she delves more deeply into the case, she realizes that her friend's disappearance may have been deliberately staged by the victim herself. With the invaluable assistance of her son, Michael, a young law student, Sheila pieces together a multidimensional puzzle with roots in Mrs. Rossiter's unhappy youth. A diverting novel whose plot features an unexpected, climactic twist. Margaret Flanagan