What do you think?
Rate this book
Summer Flight
It's August Bank Holiday, and the great Bramsbourne Fete and Flower Show. But this one is going to be particularly memorable. Everyone takes part in the preparations, and families gather from far and near. Brigadier and Mrs Trent welcome their daughter Susan, her husband and two children, and their daughter-in-law Elizabeth. Only their son Victor is absent, a sorrow they silently agree not to mention. Into this carefree scene comes a man on the run. His efforts to evade the tightening police net affect, one after another, everyone in the village. But Brigadier Trent and his wife, and the war-disabled vicar, are more concerned than anyone ...
- GenresMystery
Audio Cassette
First published February 1, 1957
2 people are currently reading
10 people want to read
About the author
Margaret Yorke
86 books54 followersMargaret Yorke was an English crime fiction writer, real name Margaret Beda Nicholson (née Larminie).
Margaret Yorke was awarded the 1999 CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger.
Born in Surrey, England, to John and Alison Larminie in 1924, Margaret Yorke (Margaret Beda Nicholson) grew up in Dublin before moving back to England in 1937, where the family settled in Hampshire, although she later lived in a small village in Buckinghamshire.
During World War II she saw service in the Women’s Royal Naval Service as a driver. In 1945, she married, but it was only to last some ten years, although there were two children; a son and daughter. Her childhood interest in literature was re-enforced by five years living close to Stratford-upon-Avon and she also worked variously as a bookseller and as a librarian in two Oxford Colleges, being the first woman ever to work in that of Christ Church.
She was widely travelled and has a particular interest in both Greece and Russia.
Her first novel was published in 1957, but it was not until 1970 that she turned her hand to crime writing. There followed a series of five novels featuring Dr. Patrick Grant, an Oxford Don and amateur sleuth, who shares her own love of Shakespeare. More crime and mystery was to follow, and she wrote some forty three books in all, but the Grant novels were limited to five as, in her own words, ‘authors using a series detective are trapped by their series. It stops some of them from expanding as writers’.
She was proud of the fact that many of her novels were essentially about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations which may threatening, or simply horrific. It is this facet of her writing that ensures a loyal following amongst readers, who inevitably identify with some of the characters and recognise conflicts that may occur in everyday life. Indeed, Yorke stated that characters were far more important to her than intricate plots and that when writing ‘I don’t manipulate the characters, they manipulate me’.
Critics have noted that she has a ‘marvellous use of language’ and she has frequently been cited as an equal to P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. She was a past chairman of the Crime Writers' Association and in 1999 was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger, having already been honoured with the Martin Beck Award from the Swedish Academy of Detection.
Margaret Yorke died in 2012.
Margaret Yorke was awarded the 1999 CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger.
Born in Surrey, England, to John and Alison Larminie in 1924, Margaret Yorke (Margaret Beda Nicholson) grew up in Dublin before moving back to England in 1937, where the family settled in Hampshire, although she later lived in a small village in Buckinghamshire.
During World War II she saw service in the Women’s Royal Naval Service as a driver. In 1945, she married, but it was only to last some ten years, although there were two children; a son and daughter. Her childhood interest in literature was re-enforced by five years living close to Stratford-upon-Avon and she also worked variously as a bookseller and as a librarian in two Oxford Colleges, being the first woman ever to work in that of Christ Church.
She was widely travelled and has a particular interest in both Greece and Russia.
Her first novel was published in 1957, but it was not until 1970 that she turned her hand to crime writing. There followed a series of five novels featuring Dr. Patrick Grant, an Oxford Don and amateur sleuth, who shares her own love of Shakespeare. More crime and mystery was to follow, and she wrote some forty three books in all, but the Grant novels were limited to five as, in her own words, ‘authors using a series detective are trapped by their series. It stops some of them from expanding as writers’.
She was proud of the fact that many of her novels were essentially about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations which may threatening, or simply horrific. It is this facet of her writing that ensures a loyal following amongst readers, who inevitably identify with some of the characters and recognise conflicts that may occur in everyday life. Indeed, Yorke stated that characters were far more important to her than intricate plots and that when writing ‘I don’t manipulate the characters, they manipulate me’.
Critics have noted that she has a ‘marvellous use of language’ and she has frequently been cited as an equal to P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. She was a past chairman of the Crime Writers' Association and in 1999 was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger, having already been honoured with the Martin Beck Award from the Swedish Academy of Detection.
Margaret Yorke died in 2012.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 19, 2012
I give all of Yorke's books four stars automatically because what I love about them is their reliability. She is one of the best at giving you a real feeling for the authentic rhythms of British life. The aristocrats, the middle class, the working class, the jails, the sociopaths, the good vicars, the kind old ladies, the young thugs, the struggling single mum with kids, all of it is on display. And I won't define her as cozy because there is some really awful violence in her books amidst the nice cup at the AGA and the washing out of tights at night.
In any case, loved this one about a small village where a resident returns to bring nothing but trouble in his wake and a lovely family is put through some really trying times. A good thriller of a small domestic sort with a kindly vicar and troubles getting in good help in the country. Lovely.
In any case, loved this one about a small village where a resident returns to bring nothing but trouble in his wake and a lovely family is put through some really trying times. A good thriller of a small domestic sort with a kindly vicar and troubles getting in good help in the country. Lovely.
Displaying 1 of 1 review