THE WHISPERING WALL, Patricia Carlon
Patricia Carlon's THE WHISPERING WALL tells the story of a wealthy,
paralyzed, bed-ridden woman who, thanks to a vent in the wall, overhears
murderous conversations. The Phippses plan to murder singer, Roderick
Palmer. A niece discovers
Sarah can blink in response to questions. But
the Phippses realize Sarah has overheard their plot and determine to
kill her,
too. With enormous effort, using letter games and Scrabble, Sarah
attempts to warn Roderick in the only way she can.
Carlon proved herself to be a first class suspense writer with this
novel. Carlon is Australian and wrote most of her books in the sixties.
Occasionally I run across one, although less and less over time.Carlon
was deaf from age 11 onward and kept out of the public eye her whole
life. This may also explain why so many of her books used disabilities
of some type as a feature.
Here is an interesting article about
her.
8 comments:
An altogether new writer for me...thanks. The '60s seems to have been the decade in which protagonists with disabilities in crime fiction and drama became a notable continuing thread...and high time.
Like Todd, I'm not familiar with Patricia Carton. I'll have to remedy that. THE WHISPERING WALL sounds intriguing!
I read this one more years ago than I care to count. As I remember (dimnly now), it was a good one, but I never followed up to read anything else by her.
Trying to find more myself. Only seem to be $$$ or at libraries.
Some of those you probably already have read, such as CRIME OF SILENCE, are available for $4 plus postage (look out for the latter!) at some spots...this one I know because at least several of her books are digitized at Archive.org, which is also offering links to secondhand marketer Better World Books, perhaps among others...
THE WHISPERING WALL: https://archive.org/details/whisperingwall0000carl
CRIME OF SILENCE: https://archive.org/details/crimeofsilence00carl
DANGER IN THE DARK: https://archive.org/details/dangerindark0000patr/page/n5/mode/2up
THE RUNNING WOMAN: https://archive.org/details/runningwoman0000carl
Open Library, essentially an interlocking fellow-traveler with Archive.org, has
THE UNQUIET NIGHT: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL8868704W/The_unquiet_night?edition=key%3A/books/OL19462596M
THE SOUVENIR: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL16512562W/The_Souvenir?edition=key%3A/books/OL786237M
and another file of THE WHISPERING WALL: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL8868703W/The_Whispering_Wall_%28Soho_Crime%29?edition=key%3A/books/OL8693225M
If you have or had the Soho reprints of a decade+ back, you've likely read all these, and the purchase copies some have links to...but it's an easy start...
Thanks, Todd. What a lot of work for you. I know I read most of these thirty years ago when my GP library seems to have bought a bunch. But I was impressed by how good this one was and want to revisit.
Good call on their part, given the general quality of the Soho reprints. Or whomever else had them out at that time.
You're quite welcome. And, as work goes, not nearly as much as putting together my typical FFB lists and others was...SSW lists are a snap in comparison, as well, though when I'm pressed for time, as often of late, I do make some foolish omissions...
Or, for that matter, tracking down the hows and whys and original publication sources of my FFB yesterday (first in a while), which received almost no critical attention, despite being a good if overfamiliar selection, much like that 4-monsters horror antho (not quite as good on average, but also not quite as overfamiliar) I SSW'd the other week that particularly got some backs up among our crew here for its attempts to please everyone at once (and my focus, as it worked out, on the Really Bad timing of highlighting a [rather tepid, but on-topic] Woody Allen lampoon in a would-be text as well as Fun Read put together by feminist scholars).
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