num_pages: 294
description: Monica Dickens, whose credentials as a novelist have been well sustained through the years, has, in her later books (the last, and now this one) been shifting toward suspense. James, at the death of his wife Charlotte, reviews some of the unknowns in her life for the benefit of her only daughter by an earlier, never acknowledged or legitimized relationship. When first seen Charlotte, ungainly in woolen bloomers on the hockey field, is a long way from the woman she is to become although for many she will never be anything except ""Charlie old chump."" During the war, however, she circumstantially meets Peter Clive, a member of a plane crew who salvages her after an injury on the road, takes her car, and leaves her with a few newspaper clippings of another girl's hair before his plane goes down. Charlie, keeping her mementoes and attending his funeral, also befriends his family who are part time spiritualists -- faces materialize on doorknobs. Peter also materializes again, many years later after a girl's body is turned up in a wood. . . . A fine story hour, more than a bone and a hank of hair, this is well equipped with surprise, sympathy and believability.... In other, fewer, words bona-fide entertainment. -- Kirkus Reviews
language: English
title: The landlord's daughter
titlecomplete: The landlord's daughter
ratings_count: 30
publisher: Heinemann