This is a very talky book, mostly set in drawing rooms and hospital wards. It follows a high-society geriatric set and their servants and lovers past and present. The high-society old folks have been prone to intrigues; most are long past and poorly buried (the intrigues, not the old folks). These folks are haunted, paranoid and fearing exposure. The servants and lovers wield power to blackmail and worm their way into some high-society wills. In my opinion, the stage show is most thrilling when we’re with the granny posse of the Maud Long Ward where astrology and deathwatches win through! I am also quite fond of Alec, a social scientist whose main research is to shock the members of his cohort and then chart their respective heart rates.

As the tale progresses, more and more characters receive unsettling telephone calls. A disembodied voice reminds the listener: remember, you must die; this is the message word-for-word, but each listener describes a distinct voice (e.g., young and civilized vs elderly and sinister and so on). Reactions vary greatly as well, from abject fear to absolute calm. With or without the calls, the listeners are preoccupied with their own mortality (and everyone else’s too). Everyone reads the obituaries; everyone speculates who will predecease whom; everyone rewrites their will on a whim. The book jacket copy frames these phone call phenomena as the crux of the plot. If you’re in search of a good mystery, search elsewhere. With its aged cast, it could have been a strange and captivating mystery (think of the twists and problems posed by senility, infirmity, crotchety attitudes, abrupt natural deaths, etc!). One character, for instance, believes he can't say if he's the culprit behind the calls; he just might be senile with a Mr. Hyde side. This is barely developed and it's a shame. At the foreground of the tale is the interpersonal drama, at the background: the phone calls.

This is my third Muriel Spark book and it certainly bears her refreshing/cynical mark. Her mark is a tooth mark, I think. I was hoping for something spookier, but this has more to do with my expectations upon reading the book jacket and less to do with the quality of this book.