For once, this mystery book by Mary Stewart doesn't act as a travel guide extraordinaire at the same time. The story is too contained within the space of private properties, with good reason. Of Stewart's mystery books I have read, this one is the darkest and most obscure visible in title and storyline both. But follow me to Lake Geneva's French side to have a good look around.
The setting for this story is as usual very real and of the time the book was written. Geneva is somewhere on the far horizon with its binational airport, while spa Deauville is nearer but not as near as Thonon-les-Bains. The description of the landscape is masterly and can give you an appetite to go there on a holiday.
The main character was a bilingual English-French girl who just happened to forget to inform her new French employers that she was fluent in French. It was the ad that said English only, forgetting something minor seemed the right thing to do to get the job. This sets her up to be the recipient of all kind of secrets, skeletons in closets, and plain gossip as everybody assumed her to be deaf to French.
As the story progresses, the landscape seems to change. Geneva seems to move away. The already dark forests become darker, the winding roads more terrifying, the family seat more Gothic, and family and employees more secretive. It is masterly, how Mary Stewart can use the surroundings to constrict space and time around a beleaguered governess. At times, the reader has to remember to breath.
As more family members enter the stage set on the shores of Lake Geneva, more mysteries than one seem to be piling up to baffle the interloper. Never straightforward, every move she makes raises the question if that one wasn't exactly what she should have avoided at all cost. But as space and time run out, options become rarer and rarer.
Mary Stewart's Nine Coaches Waiting was out of print for many years, but is now available again on Kindle by Amazon. How often do we say 'the old ones are the best'? With Mary Stewart that holds true. If you enjoy the frisson of a good and dangerous mystery, then this is a good choice to go for.
Further reading
Mystery in Delphi
Mystery in the Pyrenees Mountains
Austrian Mystery with Horses
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