Subjects are thoroughly covered and the information is written in an friendly and interesting manner. If you have a question about the Sonoran Desert, you will most likely find the answer here. Among other surprises, this book offered my first look at the "creeping devil cactus" - how interesting! I'd never even heard of it before. "A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert" is a book you will turn to for detailed information that can be trusted as well as entertainment. Very nice photographs and illustrations. A great book for a nature lover, even if the Sonoran Desert holds no particular interest to them.

This is the ideal book to take along on trips to the Sonora Desert. Whether it is the Cailfornian , including Baja, Arizonian(it actually covers five states) or Mexican portions of the vast and diverse Sonara Desert, the details and complexities of this eco system are truly amazing. This book is an indespensible guide to all facets of this immense gift, including the many plants and animals that inhabit this harsh yet bountiful environment. It is a book to read before, as well as after the trips to the desert. Since it is so diverse and vast , covering some 100, 000 sq.mi., the amount of information given is quite a bit but done in such a mannner that one can easily navigate the text to the desired area of interest Inevitably one will stray into an area of new found interest. The little known facts are a lay persons path to knowledge about what the heck they just saw or are about to see. The black and white illustrations for the plants and animals you will or did encounter are excellent and extremely helpful for identification. There is a section with color photographs as well to further illustrate the beauty of the Sonora Desert. With contributions by some thirty five different experts in their pespective field this book is the ultimate guide. Do not hesitate to buy this book if you are visting the Sonora Desert as it will prove to be a valuble reference tool that can be used over and over. Since there is so much to learn about the Sonora Desert and it's inhabitants, this book can be read anytime, anywhere since it is nearly impossible to experience it all. Recommended for the tourist, naturalist or anyone interested in learning more about the 2000 species of plants, 550 species of verbrates and thousands of unknown invertebrate species who make the Sonora Desert home. This is truly fascinating material that only nature can provide so don't hesitate to purchase this book.

we agree with all of the other reveiws.... a great discovery and a great resource....Glad we got it...

A retired famous film star has a house full of deceitful relatives eager to sponge off her. When she suspects that someone is trying to poison her, she goes to the famed governess turned private detective Miss Silver for advice. But she ignores Miss Silver's warning to be careful and instead plans a party at her lovely estate. Then disaster strikes.

The book is not only a good mystery full of suspense, but also has a sweet romantic storyline to it. I recommend it highly, it's very entertaining. This is in a similar genre/style to Agatha Christie, another great mystery writer.

A retired famous film star has a house full of deceitful relatives eager to sponge off her and would be very happy if she die so they could have her fortune with no strings attached. When she suspects that someone is trying to poison her, she goes to the author's famed governess turned private detective Miss Silver for advice. But in the beginning, she ignores Miss Silver's warning to be careful and instead plans for merriment by hosting a party at her lovely estate. Things take a bad turn when one of the guests turns up dead, her head smashed in, her lifeless body floating in the pool...As Miss Silver uses her ingenious investigative skills to find out who's the murderer among the many house occupants and guests, she suspects that perhaps it was a case of deadly mistaken identity, with the film star the real targeted victim...intensified suspense occurs with Miss Silver trying to find the murderer while avoiding any more murders from happening again.

The book has a great combination of mystery and romance, that makes it both exciting yet sweet. I recommend it highly, it's very entertaining. This is in a similar genre/style to Agatha Christie, also another of my favorite authors.

A retired famous film star has a house full of deceitful relatives eager to sponge off her and would be very happy if she die so they could have her fortune with no strings attached. When she suspects that someone is trying to poison her, she goes to the author's famed governess turned private detective Miss Silver for advice. But in the beginning, she ignores Miss Silver's warning to be careful and instead plans for merriment by hosting a party at her lovely estate. Things take a bad turn when one of the guests turns up dead, her head smashed in, her lifeless body floating in the pool...As Miss Silver uses her ingenious investigative skills to find out who's the murderer among the many house occupants and guests, she suspects that perhaps it was a case of deadly mistaken identity, with the film star the real targeted victim...intensified suspense occurs with Miss Silver trying to find the murderer while avoiding any more murders from happening again.

The book has a great combination of mystery and romance, that makes it both exciting yet sweet. I recommend it highly, it's very entertaining. This is in a similar genre/style to Agatha Christie, also another of my favorite authors.

Thomasina Eliot, an old school friend, is virtually the only human contact Anna Ball has; Anna is nosy, and rather abrasive.
After receiving some of Anna's things for storage while she changed jobs (no forwarding address until Anna knew if it would work out), Thomasina is getting worried after the silence stretches to a few months. She feels responsible, since there's no one else to look out for Anna or care, and engages Miss Silver to trace her and find out if she's all right.

Miss Silver, through ingenuity and some social connections that the police didn't have, manages to extract some useful information from Miss Ball's last (hypocondriac) employer and her household, and with the help of Inspector Abbot, traces Anna to her last known address: a 'mother's help' at Deepe House, Deep End, Ledshire. Over Abbot's protests (Anna's predescessor drowned, Anna is missing) Miss Silver steps back into governess mode and goes undercover, taking the job at Deepe House. (The Craddocks, or really, Mr. Craddock, have tried to rename it Harmony, while establishing an arts/crafts colony, but the new name really didn't take.)

Reading the Miss Silver series, you might get a false impression that they're all similar; far from it. Each book does have at least one set of lovers who are in difficulties of some kind, and who revere her afterwards as a guardian angel (one view of her sitting room in this book stresses all the Victorian-framed photos of young couples and their children). They're generally similar enough in flavor that if you like one, you'll like them all; nice cozy English mysteries.

Seeing Miss Silver in the Craddock household is satisfying. Mr. Craddock, the stepfather, is a pompous fool full of high-flown theories about the right to do exactly what you want, and applying it to the kids (unless they get in the way). The kids actually behave like normal kids running wild, with a mother whose health is breaking down under stress, instead of being written as midget adults. Oh, and if you don't have a sense of humor about health food and 'tea' that tastes like hay, you may be offended by this book.

I love Miss Silver. She sees through the wicked and the good with equal acumen, helps the helpless, and gets her knitting done.

A young girl who is looking for a lost friend, and an artists' colony that may or may not be what it seems make a fine place to display a set of characters. I especially like the talkative weavers.

In this book, we get to see Miss Silver, the former governess, acting as--a governess!

A watersplash is a shallow ford in a stream.
- author's note

This case follows the Rejected Client Variation of the classical Silver format: after a few chapters of character development, an unsympathetic character - here Clarice Dean - consults private inquiry agent Maud Silver, who refuses the case. Clarice, a freelance nurse, has deliberately arranged a return to the village of Greenings, seeking some kind of opportunity, but what? Is she interested in committing matrimony with one of the Random family - or blackmail? Maud Silver at least considers the latter possibility, warning Clarice against its dangers - a warning that other characters could take to heart.

Five years ago, Edward Random fell for Verona Grey, but the affair ended in an epic quarrel with Edward's uncle James, followed by Edward's stormy departure and stony silence - no visits, no communication. Eventually news came of Edward's death, although James wouldn't tell even Edward's beloved stepmother Emmeline the details. The family won't say whether James removed Edward from his will after the quarrel or only after Edward's "death". James, as the eldest of three brothers, had the family estate and a decent amount of money; Arnold, the youngest at sixty-odd, also had a comfortable slice of the family pie. Only Edward's ne'er-do-well father was penniless - there's just enough for Emmeline to live on, since James let her live rent-free in the Hall's south lodge.

But the village hums with gossip now thatEdward has returned; Arnold shows no signs whatever of re-dividing the family pile, and Edward doesn't see fit to say where he was or what he was doing. Edward's long absence gives Wentworth a natural opening for introducing us to the cast - he meets Susan Wayne by chance at the train station, and since she's going to be cataloging the Hall's library, she asks him to fill her in on the situation so she won't say the wrong thing. They're friends - she had a crush on him when he left, and she's still close to Emmeline.

Lord Burlingham, the next nearest big landowner, is no friend of Arnold's; he offers Edward an estate management job. Arnold reacts by threatening to evict Emmeline. Wentworth's usually skilled character development shines here. For instance, Arnold *tries* to threaten his sister-in-law with cold dignity, but he can't maintain it in the face of Emmeline's clear perception of his motives, and embarrasses himself by losing control. Lord Burlingham, far from being from old money, is self-made, and there's a distinct impression that he was granted his title because the powers-that-be in the House of Commons felt he'd better take his outspokenness elsewhere. He's sharp - when he wants to quash the gossip about where Edward was, he walks right up to Emmeline in the fish queue and congratulates her in a carrying voice on Edward's new job. :)

Although Clarice gave Maud Silver a false name, she gave enough information that as an exercise, Maud writes to an old friend - Ruth Ball, the wife of Greenings' vicar - and verifies Clarice's identity. When the papers report the second suspicious drowning in Greenings in a week - that of Clarice Dean - Maud accepts Ruth's invitation to visit the vicarage on holiday. (Only much later on does Edward Random retain her in her professional capacity.)

A good story, with an unusual amount of attempted blackmail, some of it obviously(?) on trumped-up grounds. William Jackson, as First Blackmailer, is an example of a recurring type in Wentworth stories, a blue-collar man - in this case, one of Random's footmen - who married an older woman for her savings, then turned out to be a very bad husband indeed. Jackson drinks enough to claim he witnessed a will that never turned up after James Random died. That same night, Jackson drowns in the watersplash. Then Mildred Blake, a cold, vindictive woman who was once engaged to Arnold, steps in as Second Blackmailer, pointing out just how bad all this looks. Annie Jackson, for her part, haunts the area of the watersplash afterward, her last remaining savings now safe from being poured down William's throat, as is the cottage bought with *her* money but in *his* name.

Inspector Bury isn't a local man, but he's young, keen, and married to a local girl; his boss hands the case over to the yard because while nobody's above the law, there's no reason for the *local* police to have to paw through the dirty linen of the Randoms on one side and Lord Burlingham on the other. Maudie's old friends Abbott and Lamb take over.

Wentworth recombined various ingredients of this book a few years later to create _Poison in the Pen_, but _The Watersplash_ is a stronger story, as the romantic leads are under suspicion and in danger. The love affair aspects of Edward's life are in doubt, as are his financial prospects, and he figures as prime suspect, since Clarice had let it be known he was courting her. Most unusually, Maud lays a trap with live bait, to tempt the killer into going to the well - or the watersplash - once too often.

Miss Silver always gives good advice--and afterwards, she has as consolation that she did try to help. "Don't blackmail murderers," is one of her prime mottoes. But no one ever listens, thank goodness, and we get another story of murder, young love, and village characters.

Frank Abbott, that scion of the English gentry who was cut out of his grandmother's will when he joined the police force, has for years sat at his esteemed preceptress' feet: those of Maud Silver, governess-turned-private investigator. In the current instance, his own family is involved - not just one of the regiment of cousins scattered up and down the country, but his cousin Cecily, whose father is the closest thing Frank has to his own late father.

Before anyone gets the wrong impression, Cecily is already married, although she separated from her husband Grant a few months after the wedding and won't say why. The reader and Grant have an extra piece of information - she's convinced he married her for her money - but we, at least, don't know why. Cecily, as the only member of the family with whom old Lady Evelyn Abbott *didn't* quarrel, seems to be the unlucky one. Money hasn't brought her happiness, especially given the other part of her inheritance - the old lady's belief that everyone close to you will eventually turn out to be after your money.

In the end - or rather, the beginning - it isn't Cecily who's murdered, and the motive doesn't seem to be money - not directly. Mary Stokes, a not-so-nice-girl, doesn't seem to be lying when she says she found a corpse in the woods wearing eternity earrings, but the cops can't find it. Most likely, it ties up with the disappearance of Louise Rogers, a penniless refugee in these post-WWII days, who was looking for the British soldier who stole everything she had during the war. If she found him, there aren't many suspects that she could have met...

We are given a much better insight into Abbott's character and background: why he joined the police force instead of reading law, and why he has such a wide sardonic streak. (Ironically enough, he even looks like Lady Evelyn.)

Frank Abbott goes to Deeping with a friend for a dance and is also intrigued by the famous Fingerprint collection at the same manor house. When the owner is murdered, a young heiress usurps the former heiress' position, the new will is found burned and the mysterious Fingerprint of a confessed but unknown killer is missing, Detective Inspector Abbott begins to sift through the clues. Fortunately his 'Revered Perceptress' decides to visit Deeping and logically and systematically begins to identify the murderer or murderess. Great Miss Silver story!

Althea and her fiance Nicholas sure has it rough, when they finally thought they could go ahead with their wedding plans, a murder investigation stops them cold, and only Miss Silver could track down the real murderer behind the puzzling murder.

Very enjoyable, like many of the author's books. Besides the main mystery plot of the murder, the romance between Althea and Nicholas is sweet and poigant.

This is an excellent mystery featuring a country house full of relatives and dependents. Jim Latterly's life is drastically changed when his beautiful new wife dies suddenly. Miss Silver, of course, assists in investigating whether it was murder or suicide. The plot has a great ending and of course features at least one romance.Patricia Wentworth makes her characters real and interesting.

Paulina Paine visited the art gallery only because David Moray, the painter who rents her attic as his apartment and studio, sent her portrait there, titled _The Listener_. She hasn't heard anything since a bomb brought her office down around her in 1942, but she never quite lost the look of listening for what she could never hear again. While resting her feet, she idly starts lip-reading the conversation of a pair of men across the gallery who would otherwise be safe from eavesdroppers - and gets a nasty shock upon learning that they're planning a hold-up, and don't care who's killed in the process of taking something away from a secretary on his way back from a bank. She gets an even worse shock later, upon learning that they noticed her, and one of them saw her portrait, and learned about her name and lip-reading from the gallery attendant.

At that point, she has the good sense to use her connection with the Morays to make an appointment with Maud Silver, governess-turned-PI. Pauline tells her the whole story -and she has an excellent memory for words, although no talent for describing faces. Unfortunately, when she like so many others gets cold feet, she doesn't immediately take Maud's advice and go to the police, feeling that they'll treat her lip-reading as a fantasy. [Oddly enough, Pauline turns out to have been right - for reasons I don't pretend to fathom, Maud's friends among the police really *are* reluctant to believe anybody could have lip-read such a conversation.] The point soon becomes moot, since Pauline is killed by a hit-and-run driver before she could repeat her story to the police. Somebody miscalculated badly there, though; Maud's excellent memory and stern conscience ensure that the matter won't be dropped, and Frank Abbott and his colleagues on the Force respect her enough to face fact when Lucius Bellingdon's secretary is killed while retrieving a valuable necklace from his bank in Ledlington.

Bellingdon engages Maud to go undercover as his new secretary, since the theft required inside information. She balks at this, not being a typist, but this isn't really a problem; he has 2 secretaries, the senior of which was the victim, who was really more of an assistant to Bellingdon - sorting wheat from chaff in his correspondence and so on - while the other secretary is the one required to possess the more usual job skills. Going undercover, of course, presents no problems; her experience as a governess gave her one of her greatest professional assets, the ability to pass unnoticed in a drawing room as well as on the street.

Some really entertaining stuff, apart from the usual well-presented puzzle: Maud's private opinion of what people invariably say when information has leaked, and how little men know about what gossip really goes on; Bellingdon's widowed daughter Moira, who's too much of a Philistine to understand when David Moray wants to paint her as Medusa; Moira's old acquaintance, Moray's neighbour Sally, with her job fielding silly letters to the author Marigold Marchbanks (that part's *really* cute). The characters are far from bland, so this qualifies as a good novel as well as a good mystery.

"I have only two kinds of dreams: the *bad* and the *terrible*. *Bad* dreams I can cope with. They're just nightmares, and they end eventually. I wake up. The *terrible* dreams are the *good* dreams...Everything's wonderful and normal and fine. And then I wake up...And I'm still here. And that is *truly* terrible."
-- Urania Blackwell in _Dream Country_, by Neil Gaiman

Maude Underwood survived a shipwreck three months before the story opens in 1942, but not the picturesque-tropical-island-type shipwreck of Wentworth's _Kingdom Lost_. The German torpedo cost Maude both her health and her fiancee, Giles Armitage. Her broken bones have healed, but not her heart; her efforts to rebuild her strength and bury herself in work are all bent on trying to block the painful memories of Giles - but she can't control her dreams.

The opening chapter simultaneously establishes Maude's grief and uses it to introduce the remaining characters without breaking the flow of the story, as Maude, wakened by a noise from a dream of Giles, mentally goes over the inhabitants of the other flats of Vandeleur House to lull herself back to sleep. But someone is slipping through the inhabitants' rooms in the night - is it only Ivy Lord, the maid known for sleepwalking?

As is typical of mystery fiction not only set but written during WWII, sympathetic characters (male or female) who are of an age to serve but are available for the action of the story are provided with good reasons, usually either a fortnight's leave or recovery from some serious injury. (Ivy, for instance, is medically unfit.)

Wentworth, as usual, writes rings around her contemporaries in terms of characterization, *not* treating bit parts as puppets - and breathing life into them incidentally makes them more credible as suspects. Old Mrs. Meredith - sunken in the past, her middle-aged caregivers appearing only as foils - or are they? Tyrannical Mrs. Lemming, draining away her daughter's youth in servitude - as Agnes crumples under the strain of overwork, underfeeding, and hopelessness, her health too weak to let her escape into war-work. Mr. Drake, of the Mephistopholean appearance, apparent concern for Agnes, and unknown past. Miss Garside, her chilly social mask concealing desperation. Mr. Willard, the fussy civil servant, endlessly finding fault with his motherly wife. (The relationship between the Willards isn't one-sided - both parties could be considered trying to live with, for different reasons.) Last, but not least, Carola Roland - an expensive peroxide blonde, always dressed to the teeth, accepting lunches and chocolates even from dull, innocent admirers in her oddly unfashionable choice of residence. Her taste for cat-and-mouse games, though, may land her in far more trouble.

For Giles Armitage is not dead, after all, but only knocked endways - he remembers nothing *personal* for the last 3 years. Meeting Meade by chance, he's inclined to fall in love with her a second time. But Carola, bored with waiting for her *real* interest's divorce to become final, intends to pay off an old score against Giles: she claims that *she* is already Mrs. Armitage, with Giles' mother's wedding-ring to prove it. My congratulations to the reader who works out the truth; unfortunately, truth or fiction, Giles is mired to the neck when Carola is found murdered.

Since the story is set entirely in London, we have the Scotland Yard crew of Lamb and Abbott, but not Randall March in Ledshire; for his experiences in the war, see _The Chinese Shawl_, which took place before this case.

Miss Silver is brought in early, before murder enters the story - Maude's aunt, the wife of a senior RAF officer, is fending off a blackmailer with some inside connection to Vandeleur House. And in the background lurks a connection to another famous Wentworth character: a spy with many names and faces, who isn't likely to stop with blackmailing for *money* in wartime...