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Searching... Stayton Public Library | M YORKE | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Author Notes
Margaret Yorke was born Margaret Beda Larminie Nicholson in Surrey, but lived in Dublin until 1937, before moving back to England. During the war, she served in the Woman's Royal Naval Service as a driver. She then worked in the libraries of two Oxford colleges, and was the first woman ever to work in Christ Church library. She campaigned for Public Lending Rights for authors in Britain, and was also chairman of the Crime Writers' Association between 1979 and 1980.
Her first novel, Summer Flight, was published in 1957. She then turned to the subject of crime with Dead in the Morning, published in 1970. With No Medals for the Major published in 1974, she began writing novels of suspense, which include The Point of Murder, Serious Intent and Act of Violence.
In 1982, she won the Swedish Academy Detection award for the best translated novel, The Scent of Fear. Her books are published in 16 countries. In 1993, she won the Golden Handcuffs award, which is given in recognition of the popularity of the country's leading crime writer within the library service and to its borrowers.
Margaret Yorke died November 17, 2012.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Mrs. Newton, a widow, enjoys a quiet and determinedly tidy life in the picturesque English village of Middle Bardolph, but storms are brewing that seem likely to unsettle it. Geoffrey, her boring and not very pleasant son, thinks his mother should underwrite the larger home his ambitious wife demands. Temperamental daughter Jennifer is increasingly obsessed with her former lover and his new fiancee and seems bent on disrupting their lives: puncturing tires, breaking a window--and plotting worse. Meanwhile Neil Smith, a carpenter working on the house next door (who once served time for robbing and injuring an elderly lady) seems curiously determined to strike up an acquaintance with Mrs. Newton. Yorke ( A Small Deceit ) mixes this deftly drawn, untrustworthy cast with robbery, violence and a hidden past, keeping readers guessing about what will be done and who will do it. The ending, while a trifle too upbeat and neat, would perfectly suit the fastidious Mrs. Newton. (Jan . ) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
The reserved, glacially calm character of widow Eleanor Newton dominates the latest from Yorke (A Small Deceit, etc., etc.). Eleanor has built a comfortable income for herself with cautious investments and a series of house moves--profitable in better times. Now, living for several years in Middle Bardolph, she can sell only at a loss. In the meantime, volatile daughter Jennifer of London has become obsessed with the idea of revenge against Stephanie Dunn--who's soon to marry Daniel, Jennifer's recent live- in lover--while Eleanor's son Geoffry has married an acquisitive social climber and rarely sees his mother. An irrational act of mischief has brought Jennifer to a possible jail sentence and, for the time being, home to her mother. On a day when Jennifer is pursuing her nemesis in a nearby town, Eleanor is brutally attacked during a robbery engineered by Kevin, the vindictive bad apple of a fatherless working-class family. The air of menace that's pervasive in the beginning here peters out; even the disclosure of Eleanor's dark secret stirs little excitement in what is essentially a saga of traumatic family relationships: in all, heavily introspective, moderately interesting, but uncompelling.
Library Journal Review
As is usual in Yorke's work, unrelated characters are brought together by random circumstance, resulting in events that change the lives of all. Yorke once again peels away the veneer of ordinary life to find secrets, sorrows, and the violence that resides in the seemingly ordinary person. An elderly widow lives alone, maintaining an emotional distance from everyone, including her adult children; a young man who works for a builder on a site next door to the widow is trying to live a better life since getting out of prison for a youthful mistake, but his brother takes advantage of his trust; and the widow's daughter plots to take revenge on the woman she blames for her boyfriend's leaving her. June Barrie narrates these events with resolve and excellent characterizations, expressing through inflection and accent the differences in class, age, gender, and temperament. Recommended.-Melody A. Moxley, Rowan P.L., Salisbury, NC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.