The blank wall (1947)

Holding’s 1947 suspense novel, now available from Persephone, turns the wartime household into a place of criminal danger. Lucia’s effort to protect her daughter must coexist with shortages, domestic duties and an absent husband. The neglected pleasure here is how ordinary obligations tighten the thriller’s trap. Its films may be more familiar than the book, but the patient attention to a mother’s practical thinking is worth recovering.