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No Peace for the Wicked
Antonia Winfield sensed someone was following her. She'd seen a man in a brown suit. He was even behind her in the travel agents where she'd booked her holiday abroad. But perhaps she'd just imagined things. This year she was going on a restful, comfortable trip to a lovely Greek island - but that's not the way things turned out. Mrs Winfield's niece was going on the trip with her, and the two ladies soon had a third the man in the brown suit . . .
- GenresMystery
Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
About the author
Elizabeth Ferrars
92 books28 followersAka E.X. Ferrars.
Born Morna Doris McTaggart in Rangoon, Burma of a Scottish father and an Irish-German mother, she grew up in England where she moved at age six. She attended Bedales school and then took a diploma in journalism at London University.
Her first two novels, 'Turn Single' (1932) and 'Broken Music' (1934), came out under her own name, Morna McTaggart. In the early 1930s she married her first husband but she left him, moved to Belsize Park in London and lived with Dr Robert Brown, a lecturer in botany at Bedford College in 1942. She eventually divorced her first husband in October 1945 and married Dr, later Professor, Brown.
It was in 1940 that her first crime novel 'Give a Corpse a Bad Name' was published under the pseudonymn that she had adopted, Elizabeth (sometimes Elizabeth X. - particularly in the USA) Ferrars, the Ferrars her mother's maiden name. This novel featured her young detective Toby Dyke, who was to feature in four other of her novels.
When her husband was offered a post at Cornell University in the USA, the couple moved there but remained only a year before returning to Britain. They travelled with her husband's work, on one occasion visiting Adelaide when he was a visiting professor at the University of South Australia, and later moved to Edinburgh where her husband was appointed Regius Professor of Botany and they lived in the city until 1977 when, on her husband's retirement, they moved to Blewsbury in Oxfordshire where they lived until her sudden death in 1995.
She continued to write a crime novel almost every year and in 1953 she was a founding member of the Crime Writers' Association of which she later became chairperson in 1977.
As well as her short series of works featuring Toby Dyke, she wrote a series featuring retired botanist Andrew Basnett and another series featuring a semi-estranged married couple, Virginia and Felix Freer. All in all she wrote over seventy novels, her final one 'A Thief in the Night' being published posthumously.
Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor described her as having "a sound enough grasp of motives and human relations and a due regard for probability and technique, but whose people and plot are so standard".
Gerry Wolstenholme
November 2010
Born Morna Doris McTaggart in Rangoon, Burma of a Scottish father and an Irish-German mother, she grew up in England where she moved at age six. She attended Bedales school and then took a diploma in journalism at London University.
Her first two novels, 'Turn Single' (1932) and 'Broken Music' (1934), came out under her own name, Morna McTaggart. In the early 1930s she married her first husband but she left him, moved to Belsize Park in London and lived with Dr Robert Brown, a lecturer in botany at Bedford College in 1942. She eventually divorced her first husband in October 1945 and married Dr, later Professor, Brown.
It was in 1940 that her first crime novel 'Give a Corpse a Bad Name' was published under the pseudonymn that she had adopted, Elizabeth (sometimes Elizabeth X. - particularly in the USA) Ferrars, the Ferrars her mother's maiden name. This novel featured her young detective Toby Dyke, who was to feature in four other of her novels.
When her husband was offered a post at Cornell University in the USA, the couple moved there but remained only a year before returning to Britain. They travelled with her husband's work, on one occasion visiting Adelaide when he was a visiting professor at the University of South Australia, and later moved to Edinburgh where her husband was appointed Regius Professor of Botany and they lived in the city until 1977 when, on her husband's retirement, they moved to Blewsbury in Oxfordshire where they lived until her sudden death in 1995.
She continued to write a crime novel almost every year and in 1953 she was a founding member of the Crime Writers' Association of which she later became chairperson in 1977.
As well as her short series of works featuring Toby Dyke, she wrote a series featuring retired botanist Andrew Basnett and another series featuring a semi-estranged married couple, Virginia and Felix Freer. All in all she wrote over seventy novels, her final one 'A Thief in the Night' being published posthumously.
Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor described her as having "a sound enough grasp of motives and human relations and a due regard for probability and technique, but whose people and plot are so standard".
Gerry Wolstenholme
November 2010
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 20, 2026
Synopsis (from the book): Antonia Winfield is just about ready to crack wide open! And who wouldn't be! Her vacation on a "quiet" little Greek island has become a nightmare of terror and DEATH. A ghoulish-looking character starts following her around. A black-robed figure leaps out and steals her belt--of all things! A Greek girl is STABBED TO DEATH! A madman holds Antonia at gunpoint...shoots one victim...then gets MURDERED himself! And that sinister figure keeps following Antonia--everywhere! Even you would be a little unnerved by this time. Wouldn't you?
Each year Antonia Winfield takes a holiday in the Greek isles. She loves the sun and the warmth of the Mediterranean. Her husband, not so much. He prefers fishing in Scotland...and fortunately his job takes him there while Antonia plans her latest holiday. She follows her usual pre-holiday plan--last minute shopping, a trip to the beauty parlor, a final fitting on a new outfit, and picking up the tickets and traveler's checks from her travel agent. Everything just as always...except for the man in the rumpled brown suit. Everywhere she goes, there he is.
When her husband's niece appears on her doorstep having left her husband (to think things over), Antonia invites Tessa to come along with her to Greece. And when a train strike in France forces last-minute changes to their travel plans, she's sure that they've given the man in brown the slip. Until he shows up on the boat to the Greek island. She finally has had enough and confronts him. Of course, he denies following her about. And so it would be her word against his. Then a woman in black follows her to a local aquarium and steals her belt. Just when she decides that she and Tessa should leave the island, their husbands show up--Roger Winfield because there's been a burglary at their house and he wants to be sure she's okay and Alec Foley to try and mend things with Tessa. And then the murder happens. And another death. And Roger finally figures out what it's all about.
This stand-alone novel by Ferrars is more suspense and thriller than mystery. We spend a great deal of our time wondering why the man in the crumpled brown suit is following Antonia around--and wondering if anyone is ever going to take her seriously. Fortunately, her husband does and when he arrives things really start happening. I have to say that I wish there had been more of Roger and Antonia together in the book. It got way more interesting plot-wise and Antonia herself got more interesting as well. Overall, I enjoyed the fast-paced adventure and was pleased to be fooled. I had tagged another character entirely as the villain of the piece...even though I shouldn't have. So, the surprise at the end added the right amount of spice to the wrap-up. ★★★ and 1/2 [rounded up here]
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
Each year Antonia Winfield takes a holiday in the Greek isles. She loves the sun and the warmth of the Mediterranean. Her husband, not so much. He prefers fishing in Scotland...and fortunately his job takes him there while Antonia plans her latest holiday. She follows her usual pre-holiday plan--last minute shopping, a trip to the beauty parlor, a final fitting on a new outfit, and picking up the tickets and traveler's checks from her travel agent. Everything just as always...except for the man in the rumpled brown suit. Everywhere she goes, there he is.
When her husband's niece appears on her doorstep having left her husband (to think things over), Antonia invites Tessa to come along with her to Greece. And when a train strike in France forces last-minute changes to their travel plans, she's sure that they've given the man in brown the slip. Until he shows up on the boat to the Greek island. She finally has had enough and confronts him. Of course, he denies following her about. And so it would be her word against his. Then a woman in black follows her to a local aquarium and steals her belt. Just when she decides that she and Tessa should leave the island, their husbands show up--Roger Winfield because there's been a burglary at their house and he wants to be sure she's okay and Alec Foley to try and mend things with Tessa. And then the murder happens. And another death. And Roger finally figures out what it's all about.
This stand-alone novel by Ferrars is more suspense and thriller than mystery. We spend a great deal of our time wondering why the man in the crumpled brown suit is following Antonia around--and wondering if anyone is ever going to take her seriously. Fortunately, her husband does and when he arrives things really start happening. I have to say that I wish there had been more of Roger and Antonia together in the book. It got way more interesting plot-wise and Antonia herself got more interesting as well. Overall, I enjoyed the fast-paced adventure and was pleased to be fooled. I had tagged another character entirely as the villain of the piece...even though I shouldn't have. So, the surprise at the end added the right amount of spice to the wrap-up. ★★★ and 1/2 [rounded up here]
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
July 18, 2020
This is a nice, domestic thriller from the mid-1960s. Antonia Winfield, a middle-aged, middle-class woman, is about to leave for her annual Greek holiday. But shortly before, she starts to realize she's been followed by a man in a brown suit. But why would anyone be interested in her? But then her husband's niece crashes at her home, having left her husband and in need of distraction. So the two women go to Greece together, but unsettling things keep on happening. The man in the brown suit turns up again, now apparently a tourist. An overly friendly Greek man pops up wherever Antonia and Tessa go. And a veiled woman rips Antonia's belt from her dress - except that it was Tessa's belt. What in the world is going on?
This is one of those novels where the tension is largely driven by the fact that no one believes the protagonist, or the protagonist doesn't share her concerns, or never follows up on mysterious sayings or happenings. Antonia is very passive, very much the helpless little woman, and it isn't until her husband joins her on the holiday that things really start happening.
What saved the book for me was the 60s flair. People smoke in airplanes, young people worry frantically about the atomic bomb, and the Greek island is largely unspoilt by tourists.
This is one of those novels where the tension is largely driven by the fact that no one believes the protagonist, or the protagonist doesn't share her concerns, or never follows up on mysterious sayings or happenings. Antonia is very passive, very much the helpless little woman, and it isn't until her husband joins her on the holiday that things really start happening.
What saved the book for me was the 60s flair. People smoke in airplanes, young people worry frantically about the atomic bomb, and the Greek island is largely unspoilt by tourists.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews