In 1941, Mabel Marchmont was a young girl when German bombs killed her mother and sister. She was sent to live with her Aunt Clarissa in the mansion where her mother grew up. While Mabel’s mother was warm and loving, Clarissa is cold and demanding. Clarissa’s lover, Colonel Jonty Wallace, is nice to Mabel, but she doesn’t trust him. Mabel often seeks refuge in the kitchen where Cook makes her snacks and the housemaid, Frannie, becomes a friend.
While food is scarce, Clarissa holds lavish parties where strangers come to enjoy a feast made by Cook. When Mabel overhears talk that Clarissa and the Colonel are working to “make Britain great again,” she thinks they are working to defeat Hitler. Cook and Frannie, however, know what’s really going on, but all attempts to educate Mabel fail. That misstep will have dire consequences for Mabel, not only during the war, but long after when she is a 90 year-old living out her days in a retirement home.
Her carer is Belinda Wall, who spent more than a decade in prison after she was convicted of killing her husband, Gerald, an accountant. Belinda discovered Gerald was having an affair with Karen, one of his clients. She confronted him in the street and, in anger, pushed him. He fell, hit his head, and died. Because there were witnesses, Belinda’s attorney advised her to plead guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter. She was sentenced to ten years in prison. While her younger daughter, Elspeth, visits her, the older daughter, Gillian, declares her mother dead.
In Jane’s Corry latest mystery, the narrative bounces between Mabel and Belinda, as each woman tells her story. Cropping up are comments from The Stranger in Room Six, who is threatening Belinda to obtain something from Mabel before she dies. When Belinda learns the identity of this stranger, she has no doubt that her two daughters are in danger. But will she be able to find what Mabel is hiding before it’s too late?
While the two time periods are decades apart, the circumstances Mabel and Belinda confront are similar. While Mabel is living in a mansion, Clarissa has taken away her niece’s freedom and essentially made her a prisoner. Belinda is in a real prison and anyone who has watched Orange Is the New Black, knows what happens inside those walls. Both women are fighting for their survival and, in doing so, turn into different people.
World War II is over, but the beliefs that spawned the Nazi movement won’t die. There are still many adherents to what Hitler espoused, threatening democracies here and abroad. In an author’s note at the end of the book, Corry says the idea for The Stranger in Room Six began when a man at one of her book signings told her about the existence of “lists” in certain countries, naming those who were suspected of being sympathetic to Hitler. Many of those on those lists are now dead, but that doesn’t mean an connection with Hitler could damage surviving family members. And with the internet, those rumors can go viral.
Corry’s talents for creating characters and atmosphere are on full display. Mabel, lonely and adrift after losing her family, is vulnerable and easily manipulated by Clarissa and Jonty. And when she becomes friends with Antonio, an Italian prisoner of war, she doesn’t seem to understand the risks of corroborating with an enemy combatant. Where Belinda is concerned, I do take issue with the advice she received from her lawyer, taking that guilty plea and not going to trial. And ten years! Not sure any judge would hand down that sentence when Gerald’s death was an accident and Belinda had a pristine record. Of course, then we would miss all those prison scenes where Belinda must fight to stay alive.
The Stranger in Room Six
Jane Corry
Top photo: Bigstock
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