Death at Greenway : A Novel
Author(s): Lori Rader-Day
"Irresistible... a Golden Age homage, an elegantly constructed mystery that on every page reinforces the message that everyone counts." –New York Times Book Review
Recommended by New York Times Book Review • Wall Street Journal • Parade • Country Living • Chicago Tribune • South Florida Sun-Sentinel • The Free-Lance Star • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • CrimeReads • Nerd Daily • Red Carpet Crash • and many more!
From the award-winning author of The Day I Died and The Lucky One, a captivating suspense novel about nurses during World War II who come to Agatha Christie’s holiday estate to care for evacuated children, but when a body is discovered nearby, the idyllic setting becomes host to a deadly mystery.
Bridey Kelly has come to Greenway House—the beloved holiday home of Agatha Christie—in disgrace. A terrible mistake at St. Prisca’s Hospital in London has led to her dismissal as a nurse trainee, and her only chance for redemption is a position in the countryside caring for children evacuated to safety from the Blitz.
Greenway is a beautiful home full of riddles: wondrous curios not to be touched, restrictions on rooms not to be entered, and a generous library, filled with books about murder. The biggest mystery might be the other nurse, Gigi, who is like no one Bridey has ever met. Chasing ten young children through the winding paths of the estate grounds might have soothed Bridey’s anxieties and grief—if Greenway were not situated so near the English Channel and the rising aggressions of the war.
When a body washes ashore near the estate, Bridey is horrified to realize this is not a victim of war, but of a brutal killing. As the local villagers look among themselves, Bridey and Gigi discover they each harbor dangerous secrets about what has led them to Greenway. With a mystery writer’s home as their unsettling backdrop, the young women must unravel the truth before their safe haven becomes a place of death . . .
Review(s):
"Irresistible... a Golden Age homage, an elegantly constructed mystery that on every page reinforces the message that everyone counts."
“Chicago author Lori Rader-Day pays a fictional tribute to Christie in Death at Greenway, a suitably suspenseful novel in which World War II nurses tend to London-evacuated children at the absent mystery writer’s holiday home; the owner’s occupation takes on added significance when the corpse of a murder victim is found on a nearby beach.”
"Richly nuanced mystery . . . Rader-Day nicely evokes the isolation and dislocations of people in WWII Britain while revealing her characters’ complexities. Despite the many allusions to Christie’s life and work, she eschews an artificially neat conclusion. Fans of both Christie and Rader-Day will relish this."
"Two strangers with secrets, ten little children evacuated from London, and a stay at Agatha Christie’s country house make for a deliciously compelling mystery. With its flawed, complex heroine, haunting evocation of wartime England, and a series of plot twists and breathtaking reveals, Rader-Day’s newest is a triumph."
“A gorgeous evocation of World War II England, a moving investigation of love and hope under trial, a twisty murder mystery that would have satisfied Dame Agatha herself—all proof that Lori Rader-Day’s gifts translate to all eras. What a delicious book.”
“Death at Greenway by Lori Rader-Day is an immersive, expansive WWII tale of murder and revenge. Set at Agatha Christie’s real-life country home, disgraced nurse-in-training, Bridey Kelly, is tasked to help care for a group of children seeking safety from war-torn London. Still, danger is everywhere and with unseen evil lurking, Bridey has to navigate a mysterious web of lies. Well-crafted and multi-layered, Death at Greenway is a vivid portrait of a woman trying to outrun her past in hopes of finding her place in a broken world.”
"Death at Greenway is a book Lori Rader-Day was born to write. The characters are deeply moving, the suspense and World War II research are impeccable. The language, as is always the case with Rader-Day, is beautiful, but in Greenway, she shows her suppleness: her pitch-perfect dialogue brings England in the Blitz to life."
“A wonderfully atmospheric, beautifully written and entirely credible evocation of wartime Britain.”
“One of crime fiction’s strongest and most compelling voices.”
"Elegant and atmospheric . . . A clever take on the historical thriller."
ISBN: 9780063210745