‘Miss Silver Comes to Stay’ is the sixteenth book in Patricia Wentworth’s ‘Miss Silver’ series. It’s the second Miss Silver mystery that I’ve had the pleasure of reading.

As far as I can tell, each of the Miss Silver mystery stories can be read as standalones- at least this particular story was not reliant on any previous knowledge of characters, apart from Miss Silver herself.

There are 32 Miss Silver mysteries published over a period from 1928 to 1961. They do have a listed chronology. The first mystery in the series is ‘Grey Mask’ and I had the pleasure of reading it in 2011, when I commuted daily on long train rides to and from Boston.

I remember being totally in thrall of the rich atmosphere of the book. I felt I had slipped into a black and white film noir.
I must admit that one of the negatives of such standalone mysteries is that you don’t get very much time to acquaint yourself with a host of new characters. I did enjoy getting to know Miss Maud Silver better.

Miss Maud Silver predates Miss Jane Marple by a few years and one can’t help thinking that they might be closely related to one another. Silver haired, soft spoken but with the most piercing eyes that ask the most pertinent questions- being interviewed by Miss Silver is enough to intimidate the most wily criminal.

In ‘Miss Silver Comes to Stay’, Miss Silver visits her friend in a quiet English Village, but as ‘luck’ would have it, a murder occurs.

The victim is a 41 year old James Lessiter, who arrives in the village after 20 years as an extremely wealthy man, who has inherited his Mother’s large property in the village.

He has a number of scores to settle with numerous people in the village. There is the case of Catherine Lee- who has embezzled a large portion of his Mother’s personal fortune. Then there is Rietta Cray- his sweetheart of many years ago, whom he broke up with in a quite unpleasant manner.

There are several other people who might stand to gain from James Lessiter’s death- and so when he is murdered – there are many possible suspects.

It’s left to Miss Maud Silver to place the pieces of the puzzle together and help out the local police force.

Though we didn’t get to see too much of Miss Silver, I did enjoy the little bits in the story where we glimpsed into her brilliant mind.

The story had a number of red herrings, like most Golden Age mysteries and I must say that the mystery aspect of the book was rather good.

I remember finding Grey Mask quite scintillating – so for me, this mystery paled a little in comparison. Nevertheless, with all 32 of the Miss Silver mysteries packed into my Kindle (picked up on a great deal during a Black Friday sale, when I used to live in the States), I’ll be eagerly reading through everything else Wentworth had to write.

I’ll then be moving on to Marsh and Allingham.

Do you enjoy Golden Age mystery and have you read Patricia Wentworth?