A Short Time To Live
By Gwen Moffat
Gwen Moffat gives her latest thriller a Lake District setting: the remote village of Sandale which, when torrential rain causes a landslide, is temporarily cut off from the rest of the world. This is the splendid background to a tale of blackmail, anonymous letters, conspiracy, a large-scale robbery, kidnapping and murder.
Of course, not all these crimes are the work of the same person, and it’s Miss Moffat’s now well-known amateur detective, Miss Pink, who sorts out the puzzle-but aided this time by the enigmatic Daniel Cole, who claims to be Press but whose interest in Sandale may be more sinister.
Lucy Fell’s liaison is notorious. So is Peta Mossop’s. Peta’s husband, the local inn-keeper, deals in stolen property-anything from sheep to loads of whisky. George Harper, a newcomer, is rather a mystery man, with a very beautiful daughter, Caroline. And when Peta is murdered and Caroline disappears, Miss Pink faces a problem which, even by her standards, is extremely complex.
As in all Miss Moffat’s novels, the way to the solution takes in some tricky rock-climbing, as well as a sensational storm.
Gwen Moffat’s main interests are wilderness areas and the genesis of murder, and all her books have featured one or the other. Moffat has written six travel books and twenty-six novels, including Dying for Love and Private Sins.
