Marie Belloc Lowndes
2 books
- You get the creeping unease of Mrs Bunting, who suspects her respectable new lodger may be hiding something terrible, while ordinary domestic manners carry on around her. It’s quiet, psychologically sharp suspense, more interested in dread and complicity than shocks, and its slow tightening feels remarkably nasty.
- You get a quietly nasty, very readable study of Ivy Lexton, a beautiful, calculating woman who treats marriage and respectability as tools. Lowndes lets the crime emerge through polite drawing-room talk and cool psychological observation, so the pleasure is watching charm curdle into menace.