The Alington Inheritance

by Patricia Wentworth

Ebook, 2014

Library's rating

Library's review

A young woman grows up in an English village knowing that she is the illegitimate daughter of the heir to the wealthy Forbes family. Sadly he is killed in World War II before he can marry her (comparatively) lower-class mother. When the mother dies giving birth to Jenny, the child is brought up by

her parent's old governess, who cares for her with much love and affection. But when the governess is felled by a hit-and-run accident, she manages before she dies to whisper to Jenny that her mother and father really were married — making Jenny the heiress to the Forbes estate and not the poor relation who is condescendingly offered a job looking after the family's young children. But Jenny has to wonder: Is it true about her parents? How can she prove it? And who else knows the truth — and what would they be willing to do to make sure it stays a secret?

Maybe it's because we are approaching the end of the Miss Silver series (this is the penultimate book) but I found myself thoroughly enjoying this entry. It's true that there really isn't much of a mystery here; it's quite clear early on who the villain is, and the victim sadly is not one of the patented Wentworth "they had it coming" variety. But Jenny is an appealing main character, and the obligatory romance is not as eye-rollingly silly as they sometimes are in this series. And who could fail to be charmed by young ruffian Dicky Pratt, who turns out to hold the key that Miss Silver, in concert with her willing acolyte, Detective Inspector Frank Abbott, needs to unlock the solution?

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Description

Fiction. Mystery. HTML: A family fortune may be motive for murder: "Miss Silver has her place in detective fiction as surely as Lord Peter Wimsey or Hercule Poirot" (Manchester Evening News). Jenny has never been one to feel sorry for herself. The illegitimate child of a wealthy man and a statureless woman, she has been an orphan since before she can remember. It is a hard life made bearable only by the kindness of her guardian, an old woman named Miss Garstone, who has always treated Jenny as her own. Struck down by a motorist, "Garsty" dies, whispering to Jenny that her parents were actually married, and she is the rightful heir to the Alington fortune. Miss Garstone was not the only one who knew the secret, and as Jenny grieves, her wealthy cousins work to protect their fortune. When the quiet conflict turns deadly, governess-turned-detective Miss Silver is the only one who can unravel the perplexing family saga..… (more)