Julia Swinton, a middle-aged wife and mother to three children, has realized that this is the life she will always have, and as good as it seems, wonders if this is the life she wanted. As she bids her husband goodbye at the train station as he heads off to work, the day's events unfold in a surreal fashion, and include the discovery of a young woman who has been discovered dead in her house down the river from them. Later the dead woman's strange and compelling brother appears at Julia's home, and almost against her will she is drawn into odd conversation with him that occasionally borders on the sinister.

The book seems to begin as a murder mystery, but toward the end it has become apparent that the story is about much more than simple murder. Rather, the girl's death and the events that follow lay bare the lost dreams, wishes and deceptions that can lie beneath the most idyllic-appearing of marriages. This is an early (1954) novel by John Mortimer, the author of the "Rumpole of the Bailey" books, which is why I chose this book. There is none of the signature "Rumpole" humor and lightness, but this is a well-written, melancholy novel that stands up quite well to that much-enjoyed series. ( )

In general I have not found non-Rumpole Mortimer's inspiring. This one is particularly blah. ( )