Last year one of my top reads was Celia Dale's Sheep's Clothing. I closed out the year with another of her books, perhaps not as fine a piece of work, but equally as chilling, A Dark Corner. She was, as a matter of fact, one of my good finds of the year and I want to work my way through her entire oeuvre, or at least as many of her books as I can get my hands on. She wrote a dozen or so books and I believe they are all crime novels or stories of suspense.
I think what I like about her is how unnerving her stories are. She deals in the darker and more real side of crime. The stories lean towards the bleak and there is a strong sense of ambiguity to how things end up. Not every good guy gets a good ending and sometimes the criminal gets away with the crime. Maybe that is what is so unsettling about them. The bad guys (or gals) aren't necessarily entirely evil, but you can't quite root for them either. So, I guess that does sound rather dark, doesn't it? But she presents her stories so well, they are so readable and engaging, and so well written you just want more.
I requested A Spring of Love from interlibrary loan before the holidays and have only now just gotten around to starting to read it. To be honest I can't quite remember what the story is about, but then I might have just picked a title and put in my request. As with the previous two books I have been drawn into the story from the first page. The titles implies a happy story, maybe even a love story. But then some love stories can be dark indeed. I think I want to keep on and just let events roll out in front of me and see where she takes me. I suspect this is not going to be a happily ever after tale.
Esther lives with her grandmother and while a single woman with a good job she is not unhappily so. She seems quite content with her routine, which includes Thursday nights free. She finishes work, goes to the same cafe for a meal and then after to see a film. Although she seems to have a good relationship with her gran, I am not sure I am getting the full picture. Routine is broken when she encounters the same young man in the restaurant and the two strike up a conversation. He tells her he is a traveling salesman who comes to London on Thursdays to check in with his office, spend the weekend in town and then on Monday off to some new destination. Esther is intrigued, but conservative in her emotions.
Will she be drawn in and drawn to him? Is he something more than he seems? Something bad? Or do I have things from the wrong end and am making assumptions--I like that Celia Dale often tips things on their head and don't always meet with readerly expectations. I want to share the opening paragraph as what I like about Dale is her sense of detail and I am fascinated by the setting, which is 1950s/60s London.
"The floor with waitress service was always crowded between four and seven o'clock and Esther often had to stand in a queue on the staircase that led up to the ground floor. There was never long to wait. Under the signpost that ordered 'This Side Up' the queue obediently ascended on the right side of the rail that divided the staircase like a crush barrier, alert to advance briskly or even enter, if the commissionaire on the landing above them so willed it. People came out through the swing-doors from the tea-room, replete, buttoning their coats, letting loose with their egress a wafer of Puccini and the smell of teapots. Esther shifted two steps upwards, leaning comfortably against the burnished rail. She was in no hurry. Thursdays were her evening out."
I've been borrowing the books (I also have a book of short stories on my reading pile that will have to go back to the library soon), but I might start looking for used copies as the stories really are (for me) keepers.