Thunder on the Right has artist Jennifer Silver thundering off to the French Pyrenees to investigate a cousin's death in a car accident there. The Gothic mystery romance is studded with random handsome hunks. Add to that the usual Stewart stew of literary references and locale and you have just the book to curl up to on a rainy August.
Mary Stewart has written a modern – that is, 1950s – take on the Gothic novel, featuring classic tropes such as a nunnery, stormy weather, isolation, an atmosphere of mystery and suspense, creaking doors etc. The narrator mentions Mrs Radcliffe, leading exponent of the Gothic novel.
MARY QUEEN OF PLOTS
Sinister nuns and a case of amnesia sound delicious in a story but that is not all that's mouthwatering - Thunder on the Right offers lip-smacking descriptions of French food. The story opens to a fabulous lunch:
a morsel of truite maison, exquisitely cooked ... the waitress, a pretty dark-haired Bordelaise without a word of English, brought the croquettes de ris de veau a la Parmentier, the pommes de terre sautees, and the petits pois en beurre, and Jennifer ... was making again the wonderful discovery that simple greed is one of the purest of human pleasures... she thought, helping down the sweetbreads with a mouthful of topaz-colored wine... the meringue Chantilly succeeded the sweetbreads at her table ...
With the beautiful mountains as backdrop, romantic suspense thunders right, left and centre in this Mary Stewart.
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| Angel de los Rios Cirque de Gavarnie |
In the next post, we continue - again in France - with Mary Stewart's Nine Coaches Waiting - a feast of literary allusions and more!
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