QUIET AS A NUN

by Antonia Fraser ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1977

What bas Lady Antonia done with the familiar murder-in-a-convent (see Cullinan, above) blueprint? Nothing terribly ingenious, but her slightly tart and awfully graceful tone--introduced via narrator-sleuth Jemima Shore (a British Barbara Walters)--invests the gothicky, creaking motifs with a certain texture uncommon in the genre. Blessed Eleanor's in Sussex is where Jemima went to school, and one of her school chums--an heiress who signed on as a nun--has now died of self-induced (?) starvation/suffocation, leaving behind a message: ""Jemima knows."" Baffled Jemima answers the Mother Superior's call for help and night-stalks the Gauloise-smoking ghost of the convent, linking the dead nun's radical political notions to the Mystery of the Missing Will and the shaky economics of the convent itself. A strangely satisfying blend of the ultimates in sophistication and naivetÉ.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1977

ISBN: 0393318222

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1977

Categories: FICTION