Book excerpt: DIVMiss Silver visits the country to keep an eye on a friend who may be in peril/divDIV/divDIVIt is time for Judy to get out of London. Her sister and brother-in-law have just perished in an air raid, leaving her in charge of their four-year-old daughter, and Judy wants no more to do with death. She arranges for work in a piece of the countryside untouched by the war: a charming manor called Pilgrim’s Rest. But it may be that she has more to fear than the Blitz./divDIV /divDIVWhen she tells Frank Abbott of her plans, he warns her that strange things have been happening at Pilgrim’s Rest. The family patriarch is recently dead of mysterious circumstances, and his heir has just suffered a series of near-fatal accidents. He cannot sway Judy, for she needs the work. But he does convince the governess-turned-detective Maud Silver to follow Judy to the village, to be on hand in case country living turns dangerous./div