The Case of William Smith

The Case of William Smith / Patricia Wentworth
NY: HarperCollins, 1991, c1948.
313 p.

I've been tucking a few older titles into my reading lately, and there have been some pretty wonderful ones showing up! I happened to pick this one up from my new Patricia Wentworth stack, and it was a great read, with an intriguing set-up and a satisfying love story, too. 

It starts during the War, introducing us to the main character, William Smith. He's a POW, and on returning to England he has no memory of who he is or was -- so takes on the name Smith, and seeks out the father of a fellow soldier who has sadly not returned from the war. This man owns a toy shop, and hires William on, partly due to the connection with his late son, and partly because William makes funny little wooden animal toys. 

This interested me -- it's not often you find an amnesiac toy maker as the main hero, one who somehow also manages to be mysterious, masculine and romantic. Early in the book, the shop is getting busy, and so a young woman is hired to assist -- on William's insistence, and against the crochety shop floor manager's judgement. He somehow feels a connection to this new hire, and they start to fall in love. 

But who is William, really? When he starts to look into manufacturing his toys more widely, his visit to a patent lawyer's office sets off a string of violent attacks on the people around him. And things start to get a little close to home...

The mystery here is satisfyingly opaque, with a number of convincing red herrings. Not only do we have the mystery of William's identity, but we also have a nagging question about his new love's reason for showing up at the shop in the first place. And the shop owner has a nasty accident that has him recuperating at his sister's home -- and there is a peculiar relative living there who is also acting suspiciously. All of these threads swirl around William, and once we find out who he is, it all begins to come to a rapid (and violent!) conclusion. 

I thought that this story was utterly fascinating. She makes these characters so individual and so interesting. Their back stories are complex and surprising, and the villains are very villainous indeed! Really enjoyable in structure and characterization. The plot was unusual but convincing, and I loved the relationship between the two leads. A favourite among Wentworth stories so far!