9798886011784
Stark House Press, 2026
originally published 1950/1953
307 pp
paperback (my copy from the publisher, with my many thanks!)
Well, I actually finished reading this book some time ago, but our house has been in the hands of painters for like two weeks now so a lot of my stuff (not to mention my office) has not been accessible for a while. Between the construction we did and now the painting, I'm ready to be done with all of this. Arrghh!
A new January 2026 release from Stark House, this two-in-one volume brings together books three and four in Louisa Revell’s short series featuring the formidable Miss Julia Tyler. A Silver Spade (1950) and The Kindest Use a Knife (1953) center on this woman in her late sixties who proves that age has only sharpened her instincts. A devoted reader of crime fiction, Miss Tyler is curious, perceptive, and beyond capable of holding her own when she inevitably comes to find herself smack in the middle of real-life murders. In his introduction, Curtis Evans points out that, much like Murder, She Wrote’s Jessica Fletcher, Julia can’t seem to go anywhere without a murder tagging along right behind her. Having now read all four of these novels, I’d say that his assessment is pretty much dead on. For readers new to the series, much of the fun lies in the fact that Miss Julia devours mystery novels, and her fondness for fictional detectives has a way of bleeding into her real-life curiosity, often leading her into situations that carry the unmistakable scent of mystery.
Fresh home from her Louisville adventures in No Pockets in Shrouds, sexagenarian Julia is busy getting the house in order for the family’s newest arrival: her great-niece Anne’s baby. Amid all the domestic bustle, she receives an unexpected visit from Mrs. Turner, who is in desperate need of a last-minute replacement for a Latin instructor at a summer camp for gifted students in Maine. Qualified Latin teachers are apparently hard to come by, and Julia is—according to Mrs. Turner—her “one and only prospect.” Julia initially refuses; she’s far too busy. But just as Mrs. Turner is heading out the door, she casually mentions the threatening letters that drove the previous Latin teacher away. For Miss Julia, that detail seals her fate, and it isn’t long before she’s heading for Camp Pirate Island, drawn by the promise of a mystery she can’t resist. But what starts as a few anonymous letters quickly escalates, beginning with a bullet that whizzes past her on the beach and soon erupting into not just one, but multiple murders—and a summer camp teeming with suspects.
I was also excited by the anonymous letters, thinking the book might turn out to be another entry in the poison-pen novel category, but like Miss Julia I got way more than I'd bargained for.
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| from ebay (you really have to love that picture!) |
Reading A Silver Spade was a genuine pleasure—easily more compelling than the two books that came before it. The mystery is strong, but what really lingers is the edgy, slightly discordant undercurrent that gives the novel its sharp bite, as multiple homicides unfold in a place that feels almost fundamentally at odds with even the possibility of such violence. This is a summer camp where, after lessons end, the girls are meant to be singing songs, putting on skits, swimming in the lake and gathering around campfires—simple, cheerful rituals that in some cases, take on a chilling quality once death enters the picture. And, honestly, this story stirred up a bit of nostalgia for me—not that I ever studied Latin at a summer camp (I mean, really?) — but it did take me back to those fun days of Girl Scout camps I attended when I was much younger. Let's just say I should have guessed the who but I never did, and that's definitely a win.
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| first edition hardcover, from ebay |
In The Kindest Use a Knife, Miss Julia is back home in Rossville, Virginia. As she notes,
"I've been away from home a good bit since I retired. Annapolis and Louisville and Camp Pirate Island, Maine, were all nice, and the excitement in all those places had certainly kept me from sitting down and feeling superannuated and sorry for myself, but Rossville is home and the garden spot of the world."
Garden spot it may be (to Miss Julia anyway) but it's certainly not immune from the problems of the rest of the world, including murder. Jack Morris, wheelchair-bound son of Evelyn Morris and a father who had left years earlier, has taken an overdose of pills. Evidently, thinking it was likely that Jack would die (he didn't), Mr. G.R. Riley, senior warden of St. Ives Church (with a "duty to see to the business affairs of the parish") had consulted an architect regarding the restoration of the Old Rectory, where the Morris family have lived for some time. Years earlier, when Evelyn's husband Richard had taken off as part of an insurance scam, he had left her and her two children in a sorry financial state, and they had been staying in the Old Rectory rent free as a kindness. Now Riley wants to move Evelyn's family out and make the place the parish house. But when Evelyn unexpectedly appears at the Guild Meeting—where members are voting on Riley’s plans—the votes swing in her favor, despite a number of locals who quietly hoped she’d be forced out. So when Miss Julia later discovers Evelyn with a knife in her back, it’s no surprise that suspicion falls on a few citizens of this "garden spot" … including, briefly, Julia herself. But Evelyn won't be the only one to die ...
This novel is also very good, though I have to admit I enjoyed A Silver Spade more. It wanders a bit at times, but the central mystery is solid, capped by a holy-crap! denouement I genuinely didn’t see coming, and the small-town dynamic is really vibing here. And while the story itself is undeniably hard to put down (and pardon the pun, please), The Kindest Use a Knife cuts deeper than I expected, exposing some discomfiting biases toward disabled people. I won’t go into specifics, but these moments serve as stark reminders of the period in which the book was written, and they gave me pause in ways that lingered after I’d finished reading. Curtis Evans addresses these issues more directly in his introduction (which I’d recommend saving for last), along with the author's treatment of African-American characters. It’s more than a little sad to encounter, but whenever I run up against this kind of thing, I remind myself that while we can’t change the past, we can—and should—learn from it.
Overall, this is a solid and highly-enjoyable volume of two engaging mysteries. Even though Miss Julia isn’t exactly a card-carrying sleuth, it’s still a pleasure to follow her as she listens and observes, sorts through what she’s heard and teases out connections (in the detective-fiction world as well as her own) as the crimes unfold. And while she's not always on the money, I still think she's a peach. There are three more Miss Julia mysteries to go ... hint, hint, Stark House!!
Definitely recommended for those who have followed this series in the first two books, to those who enjoy vintage crime, and especially to those readers who, like me, have an abiding fondness for the work of more obscure women writers.
