A Silver Spade/The Kindest Use a Knife

A SILVER SPADE:

Miss Julia Tyler refuses the teaching job at first, until she discovers that there are ＂threatening letters＂ involved. She is intrigued. Which is how she ends up teaching Latin at a high I.Q. all-girls’ summer school at Camp Pirate Island in Maine. Miss Tyler is welcomed by the faculty, where she starts making new friends-while passing judgement on a few others. One of the latter is Captain Benesch, the riding master. Could he be the threatening letter writer? With his cold black eyes, he is certainly not someone she’d like to meet on a lonely bridle path in the dead of night. But one night a shot rings out, and on just such a path, Captain Benesch is found dead, shot through the heart. And now Miss Julia, like it or not, is right in the thick of another mystery.

THE KINDEST USE A KNIFE:

Back in her home in Rossville, Virginia, Miss Julia soon becomes embroiled in another dispute when her church becomes divided over the occupancy of their parish house. Evelyn Morris, with her daughter and invalid son, have lived there for years. But now a new member of the church, the rich and influential Mr. Riley, wants to remove the Morrises and renovate the building. But Evelyn is intractable. This is her home, and she intends to stay. Then tragedy strikes when Evelyn is found with a knife in her back. Suspects abound, from Miss Julia’s best friend, Adelaide, to busybody Vergie Nelson, to Mrs. Stevens, president of the Guild, right up to Mr. Riley and the Reverend Mr. Vail himself!