Hither, Page

Hither, Page (2019) Cat Sebastian (Page & Sommers)

Set in England in 1946.

Leo Page works for a government agency that kept him going all over the continent–first to try and keep England from war, and then trying to help get them out of it faster. He has no illusions about what he does, and also knows that in many ways he had an easier war than many other men.

“That’s me, all right,” Leo remarked, flicking open his lighter and lighting both their cigarettes behind his cupped hand. “A necessary evil.”

Dr. James Sommers didn’t have a good war, even though he wasn’t part of the fighting.

“Bad memories?” he asked.

James shuddered. “Something like that. Awful reaction for a doctor to have. Rather hard to do surgery when you can’t abide the sight of blood.”

Oh, damn. Leo hadn’t realized. “Is that what sets you off? Blood?”

“Blood always sets me off. It’s not the blood itself so much as the sense of people being… flesh.”

This book does an excellent job of getting that post-war Agatha Christie feel. A strange sense of timelessness where if you ignore a handful of details, the story could truly be set in almost any time.

This is a reread, and since my first read I’d actually gone back and reread all the Miss Marple series, and what I found fascinating were the things that I had previously glossed over in Agatha Christie that I picked up on after having read an LGBT book set in that same time period.

In several of the pictures, a thin and grim-faced woman looked on; this Leo recognized immediately as Miss Pickering. Edith Pickering had the sort of austere features and fine bones that changed little with age. He realized that this book of photographs was the documentation of a life spent together, half a century lived side by side.

It’s a good mystery and a good story and there is only a single sex scene, so all the better for me. :)

Rating: 9/10

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