Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Perhaps I am too enamored of Masterpiece and BBC shows such as “Sherlock”, “The Bletchley Circle” and “Foyle’s War”, for, the entire time I was reading Sarah Waters’ wonderful new novel, “The Paying Guests”, I was casting it for a period-piece Masterpiece Mystery. All the ingredients are here: wonderful characters of all classes and temperaments, a richly moody time in London history, an arresting story of love, murder and betrayal that asks the ultimate question about doing the right thing and at what personal cost? Sarah Waters is a masterful storyteller, not just because her plots grab you, but because her prose is sublime. I have many reader pals for whom “prose is everything” and they will gobble this treat up like the richest dessert. Suspense like Waters’ takes my breath away, and the quality of writing reminds me why I love to read. The first third of the novel sets the stage and introduces us to the once happy home in a good area of London where Frances Wray and her mother now live. It’s 1922 and the post-WWI economy has forced them to take in boarders, the “paying guests”. Enter Lillian and Len Barber, a young married couple recently moved out of Len’s parent’s house to rent rooms with the Wrays. Frances is almost immediately attracted to Lillian, and Lillian is unhappy with Len; the stage is illuminated. The middle third of the novel contains the thrillingly suspenseful commission of several crimes. Here Waters speeds up the action and this reader couldn’t turn the pages quickly enough. The last third deals with the aftermath of the crimes and is every bit as gripping and suspenseful. As the revelations of this early twentieth century investigation unfold and a trial begins, we have surrendered ourselves completely to Sarah Walters’ bewitching tale.