The Party at No. 5
By Shelley Smith
An unwanted guest…
Mrs. Rampage lives alone in a large house full of her precious belongings.
With her daughter living the other side of the world, she is persuaded by friends that she ought to take a companion into her home.
Begrudgingly she accepts a well-mannered lady, Mrs. Roach, to keep her company, who has a view to assist her where necessary.
With few possessions of her own, Mrs. Roach is in desperate need of a place to stay, but she soon has her own ideas about how things should be run under Mrs. Rampage’s roof.
With Mrs. Rampage protective of her multiple antiques and family heirlooms, the pair’s initially amicable relationship soon turns sour…
Before long, both are miserable, but feeling desperate, and with nowhere to go, Mrs. Roach makes it her duty to stay…
The senility of Mrs. Rampage is soon questioned and the lives of both her and Mrs. Roach become entangled in catastrophic circumstances.
The Party at No.5 subtly shocks and effortlessly transcends from humour to horror.
Nancy Bodington was born in 1912. Under the pen name of Shelley Smith,she wrote 15 crime and detective novels between 1942 and 1978. Smith is best known for The Ballard of the Running Man and its 1963 film adaption starring Laurence Harvey and Lee Remick.
