Checkmate

Description

'In 1948 Melita Jory ran away with a stranger and was not heard of again. . .'In Polwithian, Cornwall, strangers are always noticed. So when an unknown man arrives in the village enquiring about the Jory family, who have been living on the same farm for decades, news soon spreads. What is his interest in the Jorys, and Melita in particular?It's not long before the attention of Silas Jory, Melita's abandoned husband, is caught. Still living with the consequences of her disappearance, Silas meets with the stranger to discover his purpose.Eighteen years is a long enough time for scars to heal, but the stranger has not come to Polwithian without purpose and the effects of his presence ripple throughout the quiet community. Old wounds begin to feel newly painful, and long-forgotten ambitions resurface, disrupting everyone's lives and bringing about unwanted change . . .

Born in in London in 1921, Mary was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Girls School, Acton. During the Second World War she served in the Women's Royal Naval Service (Wrens) attached to the Fleet Air Arm Meteorology branch and then briefly with the Signal Section in Plymouth. Writing was in her blood. Juggling her work as a local government officer in Middlesex Education Department with writing, at first short stories for magazines and pieces for The Times Educational Supplement, she then had her first book, The Winter City, published in 1961. The book was a success and enabled Mary to relinquish her full time occupation to devote her time to writing. Even so, when she came to her beloved Lewes in 1961, she still took a part-time appointment, as a secretary, with the East Sussex Educational Psychology department. Long before family sagas had become cult viewing, she had embarked upon the 'Fairley Family' trilogy - Good Daughters, Indifferent Heroes, and Welcome Strangers - books which give her readers a faithful, realistic and uncompromising portrayal of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary times, between the years of 1933 and 1946. For many years she was an active member of the 'Monday Lit', a Lewes-based group which brought in current writers and poets to speak about their work. Equally, she was an enthusiastic supporter of Lewes Little Theatre, where she found her role as 'prompter' the most satisfying, and worshipped at the town's St Pancras RC Church.

Checkmate is a subtle, complex, deftly-worked novel ... Her story has the excitement of a thriller and a great deal more-a wide range of unconventional characters and a sustained flow of quirky incident. This is a novel of quality. The Scotsman An effective and unusual romance-thriller Times Literary Supplement