After the Ball — Eileen Dewhurst

The events of Eileen Dewhurst's suspense novel are seen through the eyes of eighteen-year-old Angela Canford. She is intelligent but a bit awkward and very unsophisticated, the only child of rich and over-protective parents.

At the theatre she meets a man who is worldly and attractive and older. Predictably she falls for him and together they witness a scene of terrifying violence which sets in motion a chain of events that shatters irrevocably Angela's hitherto sheltered life.

The action moves from England to the South of France where the atmosphere becomes more and more mysterious and tense until the exiting denouement in a small Provençal village. The final revelations are likely to be a surprise to the reader, as they are to Angela herself.

Here is a story of drama and character, sharply observed and most ingeniously plotted.