The Lady Vanishes
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The ingenious classic thriller behind Hitchcock's famous film, set on a steam train travelling across 1930s Europe and boasting “intrigue, mystery, and spine-chilling horror” (Saturday Review) First published as The Wheel Spins in 1936 and adapted for the screen by Alfred Hitchcock in 1938, Ethel Lina White’s The Lady Vanishes established the author as one of the greatest crime writers of the Golden Age. After a summer holiday in a remote corner of Europe, the glamorous socialite Iris Carr is looking forward to returning to the comforts of home. But having stayed on at the resort after her friends’ departure, Iris now faces the journey home alone. On the train to Trieste, she is pleased to meet a kindly governness, Miss Froy, and strikes up a conversation. Iris warms to her companion, and is alarmed when she wakes from a sleep to find that Miss Froy has suddenly disappeared from the train without a trace. Worse still, she is horrified to discover that none of the other passengers on the train will admit to having ever seen such a woman. Doubting her sanity and fearing for her life, Iris is determined to find Miss Froy before the train journey is over. Only one of her fellow passengers seems to believe her story. With his help, Iris begins to search the train for clues to the mystery of the vanished lady at the center of this ingenious classic thriller.
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''So you saw Miss Froy no more...She is nothing but a delirium - a dream.'‘
A young British socialite, frustrated, disillusioned and fed up with the pretentiousness of her noisy friends and the life she has been leading, decides to end her holidays in an unnamed (and probably fictional) country somewhere in Central Europe and return to England. Surrounded by fellow travellers who are hollower than the hollowest kind of void, she finds herself in the company of the dull, yet sympathetic, Miss Froy. When Miss Froy simply vanishes into thin air, Iris does everything in her power to find her while her efforts are hindered and blocked by suspicious strangers and men who simply dismiss her as a ‘‘hysterical woman''. Little do they know...
Ethel Lina White created one of the most famous mystery books (and it is a pity that it became so well-known thanks to a lousy adaptation by the greatest fraud in the History of Cinema., Alfred ‘‘I will bore you to Death with my nonsense'' Hitchcock). Iris is a character who tells it like it is and I loved her immensely. Her determination to proceed and stay true to herself while every male character tries to coax her into submission and docility is outstanding. The claustrophobic setting of the train that never stops mirrors Iris's non-stop mind and strength. Even Hare, who is dashing and enticing, is a male figure whose motives remained unclear - at least to me- even at the end of the novel. The dialogue is surprisingly lively and modern (a characteristic of the works of women writers during the 30s) and the constant comings and goings make you feel as if you are a passenger on a train that will keep travelling until Judgement Day.
No need for more. This is one of the finest examples of the genre, a quintessentially British mystery.
Do yourselves a favour. Ditch the Hitchcock atrocity and watch the 2013 adaptation by BBC One. Thank me later.
Many thanks to Pushkin Vertigo and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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