(1954)

e-Book, 244 pp. (Tina Rhea #34)
ISBN 978-1-55497-485-6    $10.00

The memorial to her husband was Phyllida’s only means of expressing the pent-up anger which had been poisoning her mind since the day her husband was killed by a German bomb, and in her plans for the memorial stone she had the ardent support of the vicar, who had it set in the chancel of his church.

Philip had been an unsuccessful writer before he became a pilot, and his marriage to Phyllida had not been a great success. The discovery, by a leading critic of the post-war years, that he was also a poet, and a poet of considerable gifts, came as a shock to his widow and a revelation of how little she knew of her husband. The collection of his poems revealed undreamed-of associations with people—with women—of whom she had never heard. But the emotional upheaval caused by these discoveries was swamped in the storm which blew up over the memorial stone, a storm begun by the pacifist Bishop, who had it removed from the village church; a storm which owed much of its force to the momentary interest of the national Press in the story of the dead poet’s past; a storm, however, which brought unexpected solace to Phyllida.

"A book which commands respect and may well win widespread and enduring popularity. A very good novel in the soundest tradition of the English novelists. I do most enthusiastically recommend it to your Attention"—John Connell, Evening News