28 June 2022.
ISBN: 978-10-91447189-6 (PB)
Seventy years ago, the Bayview Guest House in Ramsay, Isle of Man, was a detention centre for Italian WWII internees. In the present, Fenella Kelly is determined not to sell her family home, that same Guest House, in spite of an attractive offer. Then a stranger turns up, with links to that long-ago time when the house was surrounded by barbed wire ...
Davis has already written two books of short stories set on the Isle of Man, and this is her first novel. It’s a classic-style cosy, with a cast of interesting characters, and Davis takes us into the life of each of them in turn. There are the four generations from Bayview: feisty great-grandmother Norah, with her hatred of Italians; her daughter, Marjorie, who longs to be free of Bayview, and her daughter, Fenella, who’s determined to stay. Fenella’s son, Tom, has returned to the Isle of Man as a newly qualified teacher, but his love for Emily, his new girlfriend, makes him question that choice. All their chances for happiness are involved in George Stevens’ strange offer of ‘reparation’ – but for what? Suspicion is thrown at one suspect after another, but comes home in a final, surprising and satisfying twist. The Isle of Man setting is lovingly described, and the effects of the wartime history on Manx residents vividly evoked.
A
great cosy debut with lively characters in an interesting and unusual setting.
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Reviewer:
Marsali Tayler
Judith C Davis was born
on an island infused with myth and folklore, where the state of the sea
dictates ferry travel, and where frequent invasions of TT motorcycles delight
and deafen. Judith C Davis is proudly Manx, whose ancestry reaches back to
sixteenth century. Constantly inspired by the rugged beauty of Mann much of
Judith's writing has been influenced by its history and landscapes as well as
the often curmudgeonly humour of the Manx people.
Click on the title to read a review of her recent book
A
Shetland Winter Mystery
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