Truth Will Out

August 24, 2009
At the outset of Oldfield's clever 1920s-era mystery, Lionel Brent, the dapper co-manager of a London art gallery, insists on hiring a female companion for his new wife, Maude, who's the daughter of the late Arnold Cope, the illustrious painter, and her elderly aunt, Biddy Cope. Later, on a family holiday to Hastings, Lionel disappears. When a ransom note reveals that Lionel has been kidnapped, Det. Constable Fleet urges Maude not to pay, because Hastings authorities suspect the kidnapping may be connected to the recent murder—by blows to the head—of a man who tried to deliver a mysterious package to the Brents' Folkestone home. Maude ponders selling her father's paintings to raise money after bankers balk at providing her cash. Oldfield (The Fairfax Legacy
) deftly depicts Maude's slow awakening to the realities of the criminal mind and Aunt Biddy's growing awareness of her frailties as the action builds to a chilling finale.

August 1, 2009
Maude Brent is pleased by her husband Lionels constant concern for her well-being, but she objects to Alice Crewe when she is presented as a live-in companion. By the following year, however, Alice has become a much-valued member of the family and even the skeptical Aunt Biddy enjoys her company. But when Lionel disappears on the afternoon of Maude and Lionels arrival for a second honeymoon at the posh Romilees Hotel in Hastings, Maude becomes frantic, and relations between the three women become strained. Oldfields historical novel, set alternately in London, Sussex, and Kent, begins slowly but almost immediately builds tension. Local color and the arts feature prominently in this tale as well, since Maude is heir to a successful, now deceased artist and co-owner of the prestigious London-based Barlowe Art Gallery, and the theater folk of Hastings also play a role in this many-faceted, suspenseful story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)