My Name Is Polly Winter - Hardcover

Black, Veronica

3.57

14 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312088582 ISBN 13: 9780312088583

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1993

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When historical researcher Jessica Cameron takes a room at The Cedars to study mid-nineteenth-century domestic life, she hardly expects to encounter much excitement. But as soon as she settles in, suspicions serenade her heart. Who is that padding down the hall at night? Who is the little girl she saw in the odd pink ruffled dress?
Jessica discovers a shred of paper in an old cookbook that is scrawled hauntingly with the words: "My na...name is...my name is P...my name is Polly Winter..." - and her research begins.
Then suddenly Mrs. Tate, the housekeeper at The Cedars, and her daughter both disappear. Research turns to panicked investigation as Jessica, aided by Jake, a local artist, uncovers the eerie evidence of an unsolved nineteenth-century murder case that she realizes is being reenacted....

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From Publishers Weekly:

Black ( A Vow of Chastity ) mixes a ghost story with mystery in this disappointing tale about a researcher who falls under the spell of an old crime. Social historian Jessica Cameron moves into The Cedars, an old house near Liverpool, as she begins her search for a typical Victorian middle-class family for an exhibition on domestic history. She becomes intrigued by earlier tenants of The Cedars, the Makins, and the unsolved disappearance in 1859 of Rev. Edward Makin's daughter and her governess. But Jessica's research into the case is accompanied by unusual events, most notably frequent sightings of the Makins's spectral maid, Polly Winter, whose account of the Victorian tragedy is interspersed throughout the story. Then the current housekeeper of The Cedars and her daughter disappear and Jessica herself becomes the target of a very real villain. While failing to convincingly interweave the contemporary and Victorian stories, Black also violates a cardinal rule of mystery writing by introducing the culprit in the last chapters.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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