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The Three Fears

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 9 months ago

Quentin, Patrick as Jonathan Stagge - The Three Fears (1949)

 

The last Stagge book is a competent story of murder in a ritzy Massachusetts resort. Bittern's Bay (modelled on Martha's Vineyard?) is an exclusive enclave for the rich and famous. Dr. Westlake is invited for a visit by a college friend, Don Lockwood, a psychiatrist who has cured - and married - the heiress Tansy Hoppner. Prime exhibit at Bittern's Bay is the famous Ibsenite actress Daphne Winters, closely followed by her younger rival Lucy Milliken, a film and radio star and America's current Sweetheart. A amusing catfight between the two divas runs throughout the book, with the manipulative Lucy usually coming off second best.

 

Trouble begins with a lunch at Lucy's rented house, when one of Daphne's students is poisoned during a recording of Lucy's show, The Happy Family. It looks as if Daphne was the real target - but was the poison meant to kill or merely to trigger one of her three phobias? The other two -- claustrophobia and pyrophobia -- also come into play before the investigation is over.

 

Too much is kept back till the end for this to be a truly fair detective story, but most readers will be able to make some progress towards the solution. Meanwhile there is interest and amusement to be had from Quentin's swipe at the cult of celebrity and its followers. One wonders why this promising series wasn't continued.

 

Jon.

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