Dame Lettie Colston, 79 and pioneer penal reformer, has much in common with the elderly residents of the Maud Long Medical Ward. All are united by scorn, resentment, boredom – and the humour that masks the awareness of impending death.
Then the insidious telephone calls begin. Retired Chief Inspector Henry Mortimer posits the theory that Death itself is making the calls and leaving a harrowing message. In this novel of 1959 Spark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muriel_Spark) turns her precise and intelligent gaze onto the world of geriatrics. If you don’t break out into a smile over many a passage in this curious crime novel I’ll be most surprised.
240 pages in Virago paperback edition.
ISBN 978-1844085521
Muriel Spark