THE WALL

A quiet summer retreat on a fashionable New England island is wrecked, and in the end pretty much defined, by murder in this reprint originally published in 1938.

Ever since purchasing her brother Arthur’s half interest in Sunset to finance his divorce from his grasping first wife, Juliette Ransom, Marcia Lloyd has been the sole owner of the family’s bucolic manse, and she intends to spend the summer in peace. But Juliette has other ideas. First she turns up on the island demanding to be taken in as a guest until the time is ripe for her to make her pitch to Marcia: a lump sum of $100,000 to get out of Arthur’s life forever. Arthur, an attorney still struggling to make his alimony payments and take care of his second wife, Mary Lou, and their 4-year-old, Junior, is desperate—but not nearly as desperate as he grows when Juliette has the temerity to get herself murdered. County sheriff Russell Shand dutifully makes the rounds of the gossipy neighbors, all of whom were evidently either enamored of Juliette or married to men who were. But it’s clear that he’s got his eye on Arthur. Then, suddenly, he doesn’t, because the evidence points to local golf pro Fred Martin, who’s arrested, then released when someone else emerges with an even stronger motive rooted in a fatal car crash years ago. The killer, meanwhile, has moved on from Juliette to declare open season on the locals and their summer visitors, though none of their deaths makes nearly the splash that hers does.

After killing off the most interesting character early on, Rinehart (1876-1958) keeps the pot simmering, though not boiling.