The Moon-Spinners by Mary Stewart

Hodder & Stoughton, 256 pages, c1962

British author Mary Stewart published her first book in 1955. “Madam, Will You Talk?” started her career of writing romantic suspense and historical novels. Stewart was an erudite and stylish writer, and her books still hold up fairly well today. I felt a nostalgic summertime tug towards one of her books, since she was one of the first “grown-up” authors I read as a kid during summer vacation.

“The Moon-Spinners” is set in Greece. Nicola Ferris, a young British woman on holiday in Crete, almost immediately stumbles across nefarious doings on the trail down to the village where she is staying. Mark Langley, a fellow Brit, has been shot. He claims to be looking for his younger brother who has disappeared. Mark is being helped by a gun-carrying Greek. Nicola, based on nothing much, throws her lot in with Mark. It helps that Mark is attractive.

There are goings on in the village in which Nicola and her soon-to-arrive aunt are to spend their vacation. She plans to keep to her plans and spy on the villains and try to find Mark’s brother. People are kidnapped, there is a mysterious “treasure,” and Crete is beautiful.

If you are looking for a well-written light mystery and don’t mind a dated setting, Mary Stewart is the one. Nicola is feisty although mostly lady-like as befits the time period. There is blood but no gore, badness but no evil, romance but no sex.