Richard Pryce

During the dreary low season at Brinville-super-mare, Mr and Mrs Smith are pleased to find a lodger at this unpopular time of year. Mrs Fleming is beautiful and reclusive, spending most of her time confined to her rooms. What is her story? And could the mystery of Mrs Fleming's strange behaviour be somehow connected to the robbery at the Abbey?

Richard Pryce's unusual crime novel depicts, beguilingly and hauntingly, the atmosphere of a British seaside town at low season. In this 'open mystery', the crime is presented realistically as an episode in the life of a lower-middle-class community at the turn of the twentieth century. Unlike the 'golden age' mysteries that were to follow, the interest lies more in the social aspects of the crime, rather than in the puzzle of its mechanics - an approach that influenced Graham Greene, who is known to have read and admired the novel.