Penelope, the daughter of a local priest, is lured to a villa in the south of France where she is the victim of a cruel hoax. As to how she came into the situation, we are first introduced to her as a child and the background is set out with Stewart's usual wit and highly descriptive writing. Fulke Ferneydale, now a rich novelist, knew Penelope then - indeed, in her later teenage years he suddenly proposed to her, but she turned him down. At the time,...