Forgotten Book - Someone from the Past

Margot Bennett published Someone from the Past in 1958. It was her sixth crime novel and proved to be her last. It won the CWA Gold Dagger (to use the familiar term for the award for best crime novel of the year) and yet, remarkably, she gave up on the genre after that, apart from writing a few television episodes of crime fiction, notably for Maigret. By 1968, she was finished as a writer, though she was still only in her mid-fifties and lived until 1980.

All those six novels are distinctive. This one is narrated by a young woman called Nancy Graham and I sense that there are elements of self-portraiture (in a heightened sense) in her portrayal. Nancy is rash and often dishonest, but she has redeeming qualities and is an aspiring novelist. She is also, like Bennett, very witty. The phrase-making in this book is delightful.

The premise is simple. Nancy's old chum and former room-mate Sarah Lampson has spent years flitting from man to man. She is about to marry someone rich when someone from her past sends a threatening letter. She confides in Nancy, but before anything can be done, Sarah is murdered. 

Nancy becomes a prime suspect, which rather serves her right given how stupidly she behaves at times, but we know that the real killer is one of four men whom Sarah betrayed: Donald, Michael, Peter, or Laurence. Suspicion shifts around this quartet before Nancy herself uncovers the truth. The mystery is okay, but for me it's the quality of the writing that makes this story stand out from the crowd.