+ N Y Evening Post p18 D 4 ’20 70w Spec 124:244 Ag 21 ’20 30w The Times [London] Lit Sup p426 Jl 1 ’20 130w
LOWNDES, MRS MARIE ADELAIDE (BELLOC). Lonely house. *$1.90 (1½c) Doran
20–10307
Lily Fairfield is a young English girl who has been ordered a change of scene for her health, and therefore has come to visit some distant connections by marriage at their home, “La Solitude,” near Monte Carlo. She finds “La Solitude” to be a lonely isolated house, and leads a rather quiet life, altho shortly it is enlivened by the return of Beppo, the son of the Count and Countess Polda, whose paying-guest she is. As she is something of an heiress, she soon realizes that it is the hope of Beppo’s parents that he will marry her. Indeed the desire for money seems to bulk very large in their lives. But a young Scotsman, Angus Stuart, has already filled the place in her heart that Beppo hopes to occupy, altho she is rather slow to realize the fact. “La Solitude” becomes even more unbearable to her than before after two robberies resulting in murder have been committed nearby, but it is not until an attack is made on Angus Stuart that the real criminals are discovered, and Lily realizes what danger she has been in and how she has escaped it.
Ath p559 Ap 23 ’20 80w Ath p702 My 28 ’20 420w
“A melodramatic though not unconvincing mystery story.”
+ Booklist 17:158 Ja ’21
“The background and atmosphere of these players is wherein Mrs Lowndes has excelled herself. It is all too unfortunate that so able a writer should seek to satisfy shallow desire for excitement rather than to gratify literary taste: of the latter Mrs Lowndes would be very capable should she wish to produce, not a best-seller, dependent upon its author’s noteworthy name, but work of real merit.”
+ − Cath World 112:111 O ’20 300w