Spotlight : [Wicked Uncle]

Dora Amy Elles (15 October 1877 - 28 January 1961), who wrote as Patricia Wentworth, was a British crime fiction writer.She was born in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India (then the British Raj), and was educated first privately, then at Blackheath High School for Girls in London.

Her father was General Edmond Elles. She and her first husband, George F. Dillon, had one daughter. She also became stepmother to Dillon's two sons, one of whom died in the Somme during World War I.

After Dillon's death, in 1906, she settled in Camberley, Surrey.

In 1920, she married Lt. Col. George Oliver Turnbull.Wentworth wrote a series of 32 crime novels in the classic whodunit style, featuring Miss Maud Silver, a retired governess and teacher who becomes a professional private detective, in London, England.

Miss Silver works closely with Scotland Yard, especially Inspector Frank Abbott, and is fond of quoting the poet Tennyson.

Miss Silver is sometimes compared to Jane Marple, the elderly detective created by Agatha Christie."Miss Silver is well known in the better circles of society, and she finds entree to the troubled households of the upper classes with little difficulty.

In most of Miss Silver's cases there is a young couple whose romance seems ill fated because of the murder to be solved, but in Miss Silver's competent hands the case is solved, the young couple are exonerated, and all is right in this very traditional world."Wentworth also wrote 34 books outside that series.

She won the Melrose prize in 1910 for her first novel A Marriage Under The Terror, set in the French Revolution.

Her novels were the topic of Jariel D. O'Neil's 1988 doctoral dissertation.Dorinda Brown was raised by her aunt who was married to Glen Porteous, who stole most of her money and left her.

She has a distant cousin, Justin Leigh, who advises her.

She has just taken a job as Linnet Oakley's secretary.

Meanwhile, Glen Porteous, now called Greg Porlock, has planned a house party of several people who is is blackmailing.

Mr. Tote and his wife made their money in the black market during the war; actor Leonard Carroll, gave away secrets to the Germans during WWI; Mrs. Linnet Oakley was married to Glen and remarried after Glen left her; Geoffrey Masterman falsely inherited money from his aunt by hiding her new will; and the beautiful society woman, Moira Lane stole her aunts valuable bracelet.

Dorinda is invited to attend the dinner with her employer, and goes to London to purchase an appropriate gown.

She is arrested as a shop lifter, and saved by Miss Silver, who saw someone put things in Dorinda's pocket.

Then Dorinda finds out that the host is the "wicked uncle"..