Here, the figurative language of Millar's 1950s novels (like Vanish in an Instant and Wives and Lovers) is replaced by a cleaner style which often focuses on extremes. "But Fielding’s pity, like his love and even his hate, was a variable thing, subject to changes in the weather, melting in
Although some of the characters in the Margaret Millar mysteries I have read answer their own phones, many answer other people's phones instead: the telephones of older or more privileged relatives or those of their bosses. There's even a switchboard operator in the mix, along with a woman better known
Because so many of Margaret Millar's novels consider married couples - often at the point in which the relationship is strained, if not fractured - one wonders about her relationship with Ken Millar (better known as Ross MacDonald, who also wrote mysteries). Did they squabble like Esther and Ron do
She won the Edgar for it in 1956: Best Novel. (If you are looking for new reading lists, the Edgar Award's site is filled with temptations.) And it was the first of three, later awards being given for The Fiend in 1965 and Beyond This Point Are Monsters in 1971. (She would
Readers familiar with Margaret Millar's suspense novels, will immediately recognize her style and language in Wives and Lovers. (Just yesterday I discussed Vanish in an Instant, another volume in the Syndicate reprint series.) "It was a shoebox of a room, with the ceiling pressed down on it like a lid, and
