25 year old Elsbeth 'Beth' Caldwell receives a letter stating that her grandfather has passed away and she should journey to England for the reading of his will. Both of Beth's parents have recently passed and she sees this trip as a way to feel close to her father, who always remained rather vague about his life in Britain.
Before leaving Beth receives two more letters from England, the first telling her to be careful if she comes and to lock her door at night. The second is a strange riddle. Beth discusses both of them with Glenn, a close friend of her fathers. He suggest Beth bring a companion with her for safety but when she refuses he contacts John Harrigan, an American friend currently vacationing in England.
John is a tall and kind redheaded man who Beth instantly gets along with and they enjoy a day of sight seeing together. Upon returning to her hotel room that night she finds a note from Dalton Chilvers, the son of her grandfathers lawyer H.J. Chilvers, saying he will be entertaining her the following day.
Dalton turns out to be an extremely handsome and debonair Englishman. They spend the day sightseeing before Dalton suggest they go to a tearoom. There he orders pims*, a quintessentially British drink, for them while Beth is in the ladies room. Once she returns to the table she gulps the drink down in an attempt to not appear as an uncouth American. Soon her head and stomach begin to spin and she rushes to the restroom where she throws up and passes out.
She awakens in her hotel bed and is horrifically embarrassed for seemingly getting sick from alcohol. She finds a note from John ordering her to call him. He quickly shows up to her room and informs her that she had not gotten sick from alcohol but from the large amount of poison she had ingested and that inquiries found H.J. Chilvers has no son.
John, who is a lawyer, is visiting England with group of other legal experts, one of who is Judge Bart Huffer and his wife Leah. After being introduced Beth and Leah make plans for a day of shopping. This is when a second attempt on Beth's life is made; she is pushed from behind into the path of an oncoming subway car. She is quickly rescued but sufficiently shaken up.
The next day she is to drive to her grandfather's estate, Haddon Manor, in Kent with John and the Huffers, with the three staying at a nearby inn, and she looks forward to getting out of London and away from the stressful happenings. However that night she receives a call from Andy, a boyfriend from back home. He has followed her to England, his family's wealth allowing him to do so on a whim, and wrecks her nerves by trying to pressure her to change her plans to include him, which she refuses.
On the trip to Kent the following day the foursome stop for lunch when Andy shows up. Sensing Beth's distress John is curt towards the boy and quickly has his group depart from the restaurant. Although he doesn't outright say it he, like Beth, adds Andy to a mental list of suspects.
Upon arrive at the stately Haddon Manor Beth meets Hildreth, her grandfather's much younger widow, and Hildreth's daughter Gwen. The two women act somewhat aloof towards Beth which adds to her feelings of anxiety. When she shares an interest in a full tour of her father's boyhood home she is met with awkward evasive answers.
Her feelings of anxiety and suspicion grow when she is introduced to Hildreth's son Travis, or Dalton Chilvers as Beth knew him. He insists the use of the alias was a good-natured prank and gaslights Beth when she informs him of her poisoning.
Beth returns to her room that evening to call John but finds the phones are out of order. Fearing she is in danger she tries to stay awake throughout the night but eventually drifts off to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. She is violently awakened by Travis holding a drug soaked cloth against her face. She holds her breath while pretending to pass out and listens as Travis, Hildreth, and Gwen discuss how they plan to hide her away to avoid her receiving any share of her grandfather's will, the contents of which are still unknown.
She is carried through a hidden passage to a secret room where she remains for the next day. Unable to find a way out she relaxes at the knowledge that John and Andy will search endlessly for her upon her disappearance and the fact that Andy is wealthy enough to get influential support if a search is needed.
During this time she recognizes that she is in love with John and indulges in daydreams about married life with him until she hears his voice as he enters the hidden room to rescue her. It turns out much had been at play behind the scenes.
After Elsbeth's first near fatal incident John had contacted Glenn who had connected him with a woman named Stella. Stella was best friends with Beth's grandmother and had been a second mother to Beth's father, Haddon. She had informed John of Hildreth's true character.
Many years ago Hildreth had arrived in town as a widowed mother of two little babies, Travis and Gwen. Upon meeting Haddon she attempted to force him into marriage by spreading a rumor he has promised to marry her and take her and her children into his wealthy family's home. When he refused to give into her scheme she went to Beth's grandfather, Henry, who already disapproved of his son for not being "manly" enough. Henry had given Haddon the ultimatum to either marry Hildreth or leave the family home. Haddon took the latter and moved to America. Hildreth charmed Henry into marriage and took control of the estate.
Stella, as well as H.J. Chilvers, and Edna, the young maid, believed Hildreth might try to get Elsbeth out of the picture and therefore were on alert. Immediately after Beth's disappearance Edna went to Stella who contacted John and Chilvers who contacted the police. The hidden room being known to both Edna and Stella made it easy for Beth to be found.
Stella recants all this to Beth and Beth, who has no surviving family, feels as though she has found a family member in Stella.
The will is read the next day and Beth has been left a large fortune as well as Haddon Manor. Hildreth has been left a small cottage in town and £1. Gwen and Travis receive nothing. Hildreth and her children are immediately escorted out of the home along with their belongs, as was ordered in the will, and Beth arranges to have the manor given to Stella who has a deeper connection to the home then Beth has or ever will have. But her and John promise to visit often and bring their future children with them.
- I must start out with saying I'm greatly disturbed that Hildreth, Travis, and Gwen face absolutely zero repercussions for multiple attempts at murder. How on earth were consequences overlooked by the author.
- Glenn says "pshaw" quite a bit which felt awkward.
- I have mixed feelings regarding Beth and John's relationship. I think it is believable they would bond so soon since they're both Americans in a foreign country and have a mutual friend. But I think things moved much too quick. In less than a week Beth goes from thinking he is ugly to being madly in love and engaged to him. They also admittedly know very, very little about each other. I also was not a fan of the strong-man-takes-control-of-a-small-helpless-woman cliché. Her enjoying him giving her orders and calling her "good girl" made me roll my eyes. After the poisoning Beth says she enjoys John playing protector to her because she has not felt protected by someone since her parent's deaths. I think this is believable but she is also a very independent woman so it quickly moving into the roles of dominant man and submissive woman was annoying. I also found their height difference comically large. John is at least 6'6" and Beth is somewhere under 5' so scenes where they embrace appeared laughable in my head.
- Multiple parts of this book felt like a tourism advert. There are pages recounting information Beth was reading about historical sights and an way too long conversation between Beth, John, and the Huffers about Britain's efforts to decrease water and air pollution. The conversation had absolutely no bearing on anything else in the book and was overly complimentary. I would love to know why these were placed so awkwardly into the book.
Overall I enjoyed this. It was a nice break from the juvenile mysteries I've been reading and the first book written in first person that I have read in awhile. It moved along smoothly and held my attention well.
*According to a google search the drink is spelled "pimms" but in the book it was spelled with only one M so that is the spelling I am using here.
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