The Watersplash by Patricia Wentworth

Vintage Mystery Challenge - Lethal Location

The Watersplash - Greenings Village

Brocklehurst Village watersplash

I had no idea what a watersplash is but discovered it is another name for what we call a ford - ' a shallow place where a river or stream runs across a road and can be crossed by wading or in a vehicle.' The Greenings watersplash had the added advantage for those on foot of stepping stones.

 Edward Random has returned to the picturesque village to find that his Uncle James has died and, presuming his heir, Edward, to be dead, has willed everything to his brother, Arnold.

But there are whispers that another later will exists and those that have knowledge of this plan to turn it to their advantage.

But then, one Friday night, a witness to the will is found dead in the watersplash ................a week later, Clarice, Uncle James's nurse is also found dead in the same place.

Under an assumed name Clarice had previously attempted to engage Miss Silver's services as a private detective and although she refused and warned Clarice she was playing a dangerous game, the situation intrigued her enough to arrange a visit to Greenings.

The Watersplash is the second of the two Miss Silver mysteries I bought at the Book Fair - that I liked this one better is probably because of the English village setting. Nosy spinsters and a gossipy shopkeeper, the obligatory vicar and his wife, cottage gardens and cats, and the rippling undercurrents beneath the seemingly tranquil surface are always entertaining. As Miss Silver says...

"Very interesting things can happen in a village........And you get to know about them which is what makes them so interesting."

Miss Silver listens and observes and with her well-known astuteness soon uncovers the murderer. 

Easy reading but not memorable.