The Listening Eye

A deaf woman learns some dangerous information—"Miss Silver has her place in detective fiction as surely as Lord Peter Wimsey or Hercule Poirot" ( Manchester Evening News ). Paulina Paine was buried under her house during the Blitz. She spent twenty-four hours trapped underneath the rubble, where the silence was absolute as the grave, and only after she escaped did she realize that the bomb that spared her life had taken her hearing. With difficulty, she learned to read lips—an invaluable skill that may soon get her killed.She is at an art gallery when, quite by chance, she spies an interesting conversation across the room. Without meaning to, she eavesdrops and learns of a shocking plan to commit a most fearsome robbery. She doesn't know what to do until she learns that, after she left, the two men asked after her, and learned about her special talent. Now only the demure detective Maud Silver can halt the robbery and save Paulina's life. Praise for the writing of Patricia Wentworth: "Miss Wentworth is a first-rate storyteller." — The Daily Telegraph "Patricia Wentworth has created a great detective in Miss Silver, the little old lady who nobody notices, but who in turn notices everything." —Paula Gosling, CWA Gold Dagger Award winner "Some of the best examples of the British country-house murder mystery." — Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine