The porcelain mask A detective story

About the book

Joan Sheridan returns from Europe expecting the familiar welcome of Greenacres and the company of her stepbrother, novelist Kirklan Gilmore. Instead, she discovers that he has married a woman he barely knew and that the newcomer now occupies Joan's cherished room. Helen's beauty does not settle the family's doubts about her past or her interest in Kirk's work. As contacts from outside the estate intrude, domestic resentment becomes entangled with concealment, danger, and a criminal investigation. Chichester begins with the intimate shock of displacement before broadening the story into a detective puzzle. The household's emotional divisions matter because suspicion follows existing loyalties: people must judge both what they have actually observed and what their hopes or jealousies make them ready to believe.

• Family loyalty
• Concealed identities
• Jealousy and judgment

Why read it

Joan's discovery that her place at home has changed gives the later investigation an immediate emotional foundation.

English Chelsea House text with the 1924 copyright