'One must admire the perfectly done thing, and this evocation of the late Edwardian age, told with ironic grace and subtlety, is the best thing of its kind since L. P. Hartley's "The Go-Between."' - "Vogue"
'Worldly, wise, mild, funny, and tender, written in constantly felicitous prose.' - "Manchester Guardian"
' A]n exciting story as well as an evocation of feeling, time, and place which completely fascinates. The author plays the reader with an expertise to which one can only surrender with the utmost pleasure.' - "The Scotsman"
'Mr Kitchin is an enjoyably ruthless writer.' -...

"[A] first-class psychological study . . . the character drawing, although a little cruel, is admirably done and the writing is consistently excellent." - Times Literary Supplement



"It is original, it is strangely exciting, and the logic of its plan is repeated in the behaviour of its characters." - L. P. Hartley



"It is really a detective story in which the clues, instead of being actual, are psychological. The reader is made to feel all the tension and curiosity which a good crime novel inspires, and he is not disappointed." - The Tablet



Twelve years...

"Mr. Kitchin has achieved a very considerable feat . . . written with amazing economy . . . in short, it is a work of art." - "Spectator"
"A writer who deserves to be admired and cherished." - Francis King
"Mr. Kitchin is one of the cleverest, most intellectual, and most challenging of our novelists, and he has the rare merit of giving these qualities the flavour of a personality: they humanise and refresh his story instead of drying it up." - L. P. Hartley
"Clever and ruthless." - "Guardian"
"Remind yourself twenty times a day, how you, an intelligent and attractive woman...