The Missing Page

The Missing Page (2022) Cat Sebastian (Page & Sommers #2)

Set in Cornwall in 1947

“James has gone to Cornwall.” She said this as if announcing that James had taken up a life of crime and perversion.

The more Leo thought about it, the less he liked it. Leo had read this detective story and he had seen the film and knew that when you made the heirs gather together, they immediately started putting exotic poisons into one another’s tea. They simply couldn’t help themselves.

“He said that it was no surprise that I was unbalanced after the war, considering how my father reacted. He also said that I ought to go to a nursing home indefinitely, because I have what he called a family history of mental disturbance. He said that two close family members took their own lives and he thought—well, he thought I needed constant supervision.”

There was Lady Marchand at about twelve years old, looking like she was on her way to church—white gloves, clean pinafore, neatly curled hair—and beside her was a girl who looked like she had been dragged head-first out of a tree and shoved into a frock against her will.

“One spends so much effort not thinking about a thing that it becomes a sort of obsession.”

“I mean,” he went on, “I know you like me best. Which makes me sound like a petulant child, and I do wish you’d say something or that perhaps a tree would fall on my head to shut me up because—”

Leo pulled him behind a high garden wall and took his face between cold, dry hands. “To say that I like you best may be understating the case.”

Characters: Dr James Sommers, Leo Page, Miss Cora Delacourt, Miss Edith Pickering, Wendy Smythe, Rupert Bellamy, Rose Bellamy, Charlotte Sommers, Camilla (Bellamy) Lady Marchand, Sir Anthony Marchand, Lilian Marchand/Lilah Fairchild, Madame Fournier, Martha Dauntsey, Miriam Carrow , Henry Carrow, Reverend George Foster, Bridget Halloran/ Mudge, Gladys Button, Mrs. Patel, Stephen Foster, Peter Mayhew, John Davis

Cover by Bran at Crowglass Designs

Rating: 9/10

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