Years ago I saw this book on Etsy and was intrigued with the name and cover. I had never heard of it before but it seemed interesting. It was for sale for a long time and I finally ended up spending the $14 to buy it. I recall being a little disappointed in it, both the story and the appearance. The dustjacket was more scuffed up than it had appeared in photos and the book is actually rather small. As for the story I had anticipated something along the lines of the Meg series meets Betty Cavanna. But there was no chance of that once I realized this is a British book. I find there's a huge difference in styles when it comes to British and American books, even when they're from the same time period and aimed at the same audience.
I didn't completely dislike like this book, I actually remember feeling it had similarities to The 39 Steps by John Buchan, which is an amazing action/adventure book. My biggest qualms with it was that just when the exciting part begins to happen to our main character it switches over to the side character and we later hear about all the excitement in a retelling and don't actually get to be there for it first hand. I remember quite a bit about this book but have no idea if I'll like it or not.
While sixteen year old Bette is at school her mother has married an unknown man and gone off to France for her honeymoon. Bette is temporarily staying with her aunt during the summer holidays but as her aunt is about to head to Scotland to meet up with her husband, Bette has plans to stay with her friend Mavis. At the last minute Mavis writes that Bette can not come because her sibling has come down with the measles. Bette doesn't want to be a burden on her Aunt, who is very excited to go meet up with her husband, so she instead decides to invite herself to Grange Farm.
Grange Farm is owned by Nicholas Ferndale, or Nicky, who is Bette's cousin. Bette has wonderful childhood memories of staying on the farm with her kind, dotting cousin and is excited to see him. While fighting in Cyprus with the British army Nicky was at one point missing and considered dead when he suddenly returned looking rougher and with a harder personality. He came back to the farm, shooed away his cousins Hugh and Clover, and replaced all the workmen.
When arriving in town Bette is mistakenly taken to Hugh and Clover, who run a small shop. They tell her they're surprised to hear she is going to the farm as Nicky is not very hospitable. Bette receives a cold reception at the farm and Nicky tells her she can not stay. At that moment a plane crashes and Nicky and Bette rush out to rescue the pilot.
He is Ian Trent, a former Cyprus fighter, and refers to Nicky by the name Smiler. The man must stay at the farm until he can be moved to the hospital and Nicky has Bette, who has had nurse training, stay to take care of him. After Ian and Nicky have a private conversation, Ian tells Bette he is in danger there and asks her to help him escape in the night and tells her that if anything should happen to him to call a man named J.B. Smith and inform him. Bette feels that Ian must be delirious from the crash but changes her mind when she returns to the farm, after visiting Hugh and Clover, and finds Ian gone.
Nicholas claims a friend came to pick up Ian but Bette later finds a message written in the dust on a shelf in Ian's room saying "Got me. Old Quarry, heard them. Tell Smith".
Later that evening Bette notices and unwisely remarks that Nicky is missing the tattoo on his arm. Bette then realizes that this man is not her cousin Nicky, rather an impostor who stole Nicky's identity and inheritance, presumably after the real Nicky had died in battle.
After nightfall Bette sneaks out of the house to call J.B. Smith at a payphone but finds him out of town. She then heads to the Quarry where at the bottom she finds Ian Trent who has miraculously survived being thrown over the edge. Trent confirms that "Nicholas" is in fact Smiler, a tough customer who he knew in Cyprus and that Bette must not return to the farm house. She then plans to go get a doctor for Ian and then flee to Hugh and Clovers, however when she emerges from the quarry she finds the men searching for her.
She is able to communicate to Bobby, a little neighbor boy who is out searching for his lost pet, that a man is hurt in the Quarry and to go tell his father who just happens to be a policeman. Then the men spot her and she is forced to run into the Wychwood Forest where the men attempt to hunt her down with dogs. She crosses a stream to break the scent trail and, inspired by Charles II, climbs into a large oak tree where she waits.
Once the men have given up the search for the night she goes farther into the woods where she takes a nasty fall and goes unconscious. Upon waking in the morning she finds herself hopelessly lost and eventually stumbles upon a cottage where an elderly woman lives. The woman feeds her and mends her clothes but when Bette tries telling her story and expressing the importance of her getting medical help for Ian Trent, the woman does not believe her and advises Bette to rest while she contacts Grange Farm to come get her.
Fear over takes Bette and she runs out of the cottage looking for a house where she can use a telephone but all of them are closed for the season. Finally coming to the road Bette hails a van and accepts a ride from a man who turns out to be working for the fake Nicholas and takes her right back to Grange Farm where she is placed in a room in the cellar.
Meanwhile Bobby, who is afraid of tell his father he had been out in the night, is able to get his friend to make an anonymous call to his policeman father and thus Ian Trent is rescued, which leads to a number of questions. Unfortunately Ian cannot answer them since he's unconscious.
From here the story switches to Hugh and Clover who have been impatiently awaiting Bette. They receive a telegram signed by her stating that she has gone to London however they feel uneasy about the message and that feeling grows when they learn of Ian Trent mysterious presence in the Quarry.
Hugh and Tim, a sharp witted young man who is temporarily working at Hugh and Clovers shop, bike out to Grange Farm to ask some questions. While they are gone the fake Nicholas arrives at the shop and gives Clover a lovely box containing jewelry for them to sell, however he insists the box must be returned to him later. Meanwhile Hugh and Tim have received a rude welcoming from Mrs. Della, the house keeper, and decide to sneak into the house where they find Bette's locket in one of the rooms. On the way out they run into Nicholas who informs him he left Bette at the train station that morning.
They then bike to the train station where the man working there informs him no one fitting Bette's description had been there. Very worried they sit down on a bus stop bench to talk things out. The elderly woman next to them overheard and informs them that Bette had been to her cottage in the woods that morning but that she had ran away after the woman hadn't believed her story.
Tim then calls J.B. Smith from a telephone and finds he had arrived home that morning but was out at the present time. As they bike back to the shop Tim, who is familiar with Smith, recognizes him coming out of Grange Farms driveway where he had been to ask questions regarding Ian Trent. Tim and Hugh explain the situation to the man who seems to take the news very seriously and appears worried. He visits the shop later that night to acquire more information and after he leaves Hugh and Tim take a look at the box Nicholas brought and become suspicious of it's small interior. Tim, always sharp, looks for a false bottom and finds one in which is money and 2 printing plates. They become suspicious that Nicholas is printing counterfeit money and brought the box to their shop to hide it since so many policemen have been around the farm asking questions about Ian Trent.
They tell their story to an inspector but when Nicholas shows up he denies ever seeing the box before and the inspector appears to believe him. The next day they find a plainclothes policeman watching their shop and it's clear that they're under suspicion. Clover asks Hugh and Tim to go back to Grange Farm and when they arrive they find it completely deserted aside from the farm animals. It appears that "Nicholas" and his gang have cleared out.
Then miraculously the real Nicky makes a surprise appearance at the shop soon followed by J.B Smith. We learn that Nicky had been having trouble reentering the country without his identification, which had been stolen by Smiler, but that J.B. Smith had helped fix things. J.B. then tells the group that Grange Farm is on fire and they all head over to extinguish it.
The next morning J.B. and Nicky pick up Hugh and Clover to go see Bette who is safe. Bette has been laying low at the old lady's cottage in the woods and after her reunion with Nicky they all settle down to hear her story.
After being placed in the cellar Smiler comes to talk to Bette and tells her that she knows too much and therefore he can't release her and gives indications that he plans to keep her quiet for good. Later Mrs. Della says she will help Bette escape as long as she promises to stay in hiding for one week. J.B Smith then informs Bette that her "escape" was actually Smiler's plan as it gave him and the gang a week to clear out. Once Bette is out of the farm house she makes a run into the woods headed for the cottage when she is grabbed by a man, J.B. who had been keeping a constant eye on the farm. Fearing that he was one of the gang she kicks him and runs for it, he trails her and seeing her arrive safe at the cottage leaves her be.
Then Nicky tells his story. He had met Smiler, who was not a fellow soldier but a wealthy gangster in Cyprus, when he had been captured and injured. While recovering in a hospital Smiler visits him and suggests he take a 2 week trip on his yacht. Nicky takes him up on his offer and has a lovely time until one night when he is beaten, robbed, and tossed overboard. He later is rescued but suffers from amnesia. Upon recovering his memory he tries to come home just to be told Nicholas Ferdale had already returned home a year ago.
This is where J.B. Smiths story comes in. Smith, a lawyer who had been working on solving the mysterious counterfeiting, had gone to Grange Farm upon receiving the message Bette had left for him. There he immediately recognized Smiler and so begins his search for the real Nicholas. And then the real kicker comes in; J.B. Smith is the unknown man Bette's mother had married which explains why he was not home when Bette called, he was on his honeymoon.
The book ends one month later with J.B., Bette's Mother, Nicky, Bette, Clover, Hugh, Tim, and Ian all enjoying a good time at Grange Farm. Smiler has been caught, Tim has been permanently hired on at the shop, Hugh and Nicky are now partners at the farm, Bette adores her new step-father, and there even seems to be some chemistry between Bette and Ian.
- When looking at other peoples reviews almost all of them mention this book as talking about WW2 when it mentions Nicholas's army experiences. But it's actually the Cyprus Emergency that he fought in. This book does not have a copyright date but looking it up it was published in 1961 which lines up with the Cyprus Emergency which took place 1955-1959 (if you're unfamiliar with this historical event as I was, it was when Cyprus fought to end the British's ruling over it). It also mentions EOKA (National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) which confirms it.
- There's a chapter called The Nine Lives of Ian Trent which is just such a cool chapter title to me. This is one of the things that remind me of The 39 Steps along with Bette's being pursued on foot, meeting people along her journey, and being captured and locked in a room.
- After Bette has been captured the rest of the story switches to Hugh and Clover and we don't see Bette again until the end. This is really frustrating as Hugh and Clovers part of the book is not as interesting as Bette's.
- The whole bit with the inspector and the box is kind of annoying. When Clover, Hugh, and Tim show the inspector the printing plates and forged money he appears to believe Nicholas over the three. What's more likely; that 3 teenagers with a small second hand shop are printing excellent counterfeit money or that the wealthy grown man with a large isolated farm who is under suspicion for a pilot becoming seriously injured and an underage girl disappearing, while both in his care, has been printing counterfeit money on his large, isolated farm?
- On page 147 Clover is accidentally called Bette ("What on Earth?" cried Bette who sat in the shop polishing some old glass."). I'm curious if this mistake is removed from the Retro Classics Publishing edition of this book.
- Is it just me or are sparks flying between Bette and Ian at the end. I kind of need a sequel telling me what happens with those two.
I didn't really take a lot of notes as I was rather engrossed in the story, it's a good book. I do still get a bit annoyed when the story switches over to Hugh and Clover. Not much is happening with Bette at the time so it makes sense that the story switches but still, I wish it would switch back and forth or even switch to J.B. at some point. There just wasn't enough with Hugh and Clover to stay on them for 90+ pages in my opinion.
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