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Listening Walls
A rediscovered classic of American noir – a suspenseful masterpiece about corrupted love, from one of crime writing's greatest talents
Wilma Wyatt died when she hit the pavement - on that, and on nothing else, the eyewitnesses agree. Now her body lies lifeless in the street outside her Mexico City hotel, but a story of blackmail, missing persons and murder, stretching all the way to San Francisco, is only just the beginning.
Back in California, private detective Elmer Dodd looks for answers, but this is a mystery that grows more twisted with every turn, and blood will be spilled again before he gets to the truth.
The Listening Walls is a suspenseful masterpiece about corrupted love, from a master of American noir.
236 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
About the author
Margaret Millar
133 books168 followersMargaret Ellis Millar (née Sturm) was an American-Canadian mystery and suspense writer. Born in Kitchener, Ontario, she was educated there and in Toronto. She moved to the United States after marrying Kenneth Millar (better known under the pen name Ross Macdonald). They resided for decades in the city of Santa Barbara, which was often utilized as a locale in her later novels under the pseudonyms of San Felice or Santa Felicia.
Millar's books are distinguished by sophistication of characterization. Often we are shown the rather complex interior lives of the people in her books, with issues of class, insecurity, failed ambitions, loneliness or existential isolation or paranoia often being explored with an almost literary quality that transcends the mystery genre. Unusual people, mild societal misfits or people who don't quite fit into their surroundings are given much interior detail. In some of the books we are given chilling and fascinating insight into what it feels like to be losing touch with reality and evolving into madness. In general, she is a writer of both expressive description and yet admirable economy, often ambitious in the sociological underpinnings of the stories and the quality of the writing.
Millar often delivers effective and ingenious "surprise endings," but the details that would allow the solution of the surprise have usually been subtly included, in the best genre tradition. One of the distinctions of her books, however, is that they would be interesting, even if you knew how they were going to end, because they are every bit as much about subtleties of human interaction and rich psychological detail of individual characters as they are about the plot.
Millar was a pioneer in writing intelligently about the psychology of women. Even as early as the '40s and '50s, her books have a very mature and matter-of-fact view of class distinctions, sexual freedom and frustration, and the ambivalence of moral codes depending on a character's economic circumstances. Her earliest novels seem unusually frank. Read against the backdrop of Production Code-era movies of the time, they remind us that life as lived in the '40s and '50s was not as black-and-white morally as Hollywood would have us believe.
While she was not known for any one recurring detective (unlike her husband, whose constant gumshoe was Lew Archer), she occasionally used a detective character for more than one novel. Among her occasional ongoing sleuths were Canadians Dr. Paul Prye (her first invention, in the earliest books) and Inspector Sands (a quiet, unassuming Canadian police inspector who might be the most endearing of her recurring inventions). In the California years, a few books featured either Joe Quinn, a rather down-on-his-luck private eye, or Tom Aragorn, a young, Hispanic lawyer.
Sadly, most of Millar's books are out of print in America, with the exception of the short story collection The Couple Next Door and two novels, An Air That Kills and Do Evil In Return, that have been re-issued as classics by Stark House Press in California.
In 1956 Millar won the Edgar Allan Poe Awards, Best Novel award for Beast in View. In 1965 she was awarded the Woman of the Year Award by the Los Angeles Times. In 1983 she was awarded the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America in recognition of her lifetime achievements.
Millar's books are distinguished by sophistication of characterization. Often we are shown the rather complex interior lives of the people in her books, with issues of class, insecurity, failed ambitions, loneliness or existential isolation or paranoia often being explored with an almost literary quality that transcends the mystery genre. Unusual people, mild societal misfits or people who don't quite fit into their surroundings are given much interior detail. In some of the books we are given chilling and fascinating insight into what it feels like to be losing touch with reality and evolving into madness. In general, she is a writer of both expressive description and yet admirable economy, often ambitious in the sociological underpinnings of the stories and the quality of the writing.
Millar often delivers effective and ingenious "surprise endings," but the details that would allow the solution of the surprise have usually been subtly included, in the best genre tradition. One of the distinctions of her books, however, is that they would be interesting, even if you knew how they were going to end, because they are every bit as much about subtleties of human interaction and rich psychological detail of individual characters as they are about the plot.
Millar was a pioneer in writing intelligently about the psychology of women. Even as early as the '40s and '50s, her books have a very mature and matter-of-fact view of class distinctions, sexual freedom and frustration, and the ambivalence of moral codes depending on a character's economic circumstances. Her earliest novels seem unusually frank. Read against the backdrop of Production Code-era movies of the time, they remind us that life as lived in the '40s and '50s was not as black-and-white morally as Hollywood would have us believe.
While she was not known for any one recurring detective (unlike her husband, whose constant gumshoe was Lew Archer), she occasionally used a detective character for more than one novel. Among her occasional ongoing sleuths were Canadians Dr. Paul Prye (her first invention, in the earliest books) and Inspector Sands (a quiet, unassuming Canadian police inspector who might be the most endearing of her recurring inventions). In the California years, a few books featured either Joe Quinn, a rather down-on-his-luck private eye, or Tom Aragorn, a young, Hispanic lawyer.
Sadly, most of Millar's books are out of print in America, with the exception of the short story collection The Couple Next Door and two novels, An Air That Kills and Do Evil In Return, that have been re-issued as classics by Stark House Press in California.
In 1956 Millar won the Edgar Allan Poe Awards, Best Novel award for Beast in View. In 1965 she was awarded the Woman of the Year Award by the Los Angeles Times. In 1983 she was awarded the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America in recognition of her lifetime achievements.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews
September 14, 2024
It was a middle-income neighborhood where great attention was paid to outward appearances. Lawns no bigger than an elephant’s ear were groomed to perfection, hedges barely had time to grow before they were clipped. The roses and camellias were fed almost as well and regularly as the occupants of the houses, and were probably given more care and inspection for signs of disease. It was a street of conformity; where identical houses were painted at the same time every spring, a place of rules where gardens, parenthood and the future were planned with equal care, and even if everything went wrong the master plan remained in effect—keep up appearances, clip the hedges, mow the lawn, so that no one will suspect that there’s a third mortgage and that Mother’s headaches are caused by martinis, not migraine.
Five stars for that utterly devastating ending alone and for the not one but two surprising twists in the final pages.
The shenanigans of spiritually wounded old rich or middle-class Americans and how they destroy everything and everyone who comes in their path is the central theme of The Listening Walls. The empty alcoholic lives of the rich, opens them up to become easy targets of blackmail and deceit from the desperately poor. The Listening Walls - what does the title mean? The rich build walls around them but the poor are watching and listening in on them. Like in Vanish in an Instant, race relations between Americans and Mexicans are an important aspect of this book.
Two American women - Wilma and Amy are on holiday in Mexico. They are fighting all the time because Amy feels dominated by the alcoholic Wilma. When Wilma falls off the balcony of their hotel room and dies and Amy does not get back to the US, there is a confusing whirlwind of mutual distrust and blackmail featuring Amy's devoted husband Rupert, her brother Gill, Gill's wife Helene and the hotel's desperately poor Mexican cleaner Consuela. Dodd, a single and cynical investigator is hired by Gill to investigate Amy's whereabouts.
Margaret Millar writes mysteries, but she is also a keen observer of human nature and folly. The Listening Walls is a bit of a tall tale. Millar lets it all unravel slowly because she is big on characterization and social commentary which mostly occurs through dialog or interventions from the author herself. Her descriptions of places and sceneries usually at the beginning of every chapter are short and neat.
I went ahead and ordered another book by Millar right after I finished this one.
Five stars for that utterly devastating ending alone and for the not one but two surprising twists in the final pages.
The shenanigans of spiritually wounded old rich or middle-class Americans and how they destroy everything and everyone who comes in their path is the central theme of The Listening Walls. The empty alcoholic lives of the rich, opens them up to become easy targets of blackmail and deceit from the desperately poor. The Listening Walls - what does the title mean? The rich build walls around them but the poor are watching and listening in on them. Like in Vanish in an Instant, race relations between Americans and Mexicans are an important aspect of this book.
Two American women - Wilma and Amy are on holiday in Mexico. They are fighting all the time because Amy feels dominated by the alcoholic Wilma. When Wilma falls off the balcony of their hotel room and dies and Amy does not get back to the US, there is a confusing whirlwind of mutual distrust and blackmail featuring Amy's devoted husband Rupert, her brother Gill, Gill's wife Helene and the hotel's desperately poor Mexican cleaner Consuela. Dodd, a single and cynical investigator is hired by Gill to investigate Amy's whereabouts.
Margaret Millar writes mysteries, but she is also a keen observer of human nature and folly. The Listening Walls is a bit of a tall tale. Millar lets it all unravel slowly because she is big on characterization and social commentary which mostly occurs through dialog or interventions from the author herself. Her descriptions of places and sceneries usually at the beginning of every chapter are short and neat.
I went ahead and ordered another book by Millar right after I finished this one.
January 21, 2020
The mystery of the missing wife...
Amy Kellogg and her friend Wilma are on holiday in Mexico City but it’s turning out to be a fraught time. Wilma, always moody and overbearing, is behaving even worse than usual following her second divorce. She’s drinking to excess and arguing with Amy on the slightest provocation. Then, following a drinking session, Wilma dies in a fall from the hotel balcony. Her depressed and emotional state leads the authorities to rule it as a suicide. Amy’s husband, Rupert, rushes to his shocked wife’s side, but when he returns home to San Francisco a week later, he returns alone. Amy, he tells her family, needed time to herself and has gone off to New York. But Amy’s brother Gill doesn’t believe his adored little sister would have gone off without telling him herself, and as time passes with no word from her, his suspicions grow...
Well, this is a little gem! Told in the third person, Millar lets us glimpse inside the heads of all the characters in turn but only giving us enough to tantalise our suspicions. We know that Rupert isn’t telling all he knows but we don’t know what he’s hiding. Is he a wife murderer as Gill suspects? If so, why would he have killed the woman he apparently loved? Gill suspects the age-old story of another woman and has his suspicions of who that woman might be. But if Rupert hasn’t killed her, where is Amy? It’s entirely out of character for her to have gone off on her own, this woman who has always seemed so dependant on others and so meekly subservient to the stronger characters she is surrounded by – her brother, her husband, Wilma. Increasingly desperate, Gill turns to a private detective, Elmer Dodd, and we follow him as he tries to find the truth.
The plotting is great, full of little twists that kept me puzzling over what had happened until the very last page. It’s more of a psychological mystery than a whodunit – the clues are all in the personalities and the things they do that seem out of character. The characterisation is brilliant – done with a light touch but no less astute for that. There’s Rupert’s secretary, nursing a crush for Rupert so secret she’s not even fully aware of it herself. Gill’s wife, long tired of Gill’s almost obsessively over-protective love for his little sister, is trying hard not to be glad that Amy has gone and is fighting against her instinctive hope that she never returns. The maid in the hotel in Mexico, she who listens through the walls of the title, might be a little stereotyped, but her greed and petty criminality are believable, her contempt for the rich Americans who stay in the hotel adds a good deal of humour, and her superstitions are used to give an air of real unease to some parts of the story. Elmer Dodd is excellent too. He’s a man who wants to know the truth but he’s not ruthless about it. He has sympathy for the weaknesses of human nature, and has a kind of warmth that makes people trust him.
This was my introduction to Margaret Millar after having seen her praised by various vintage crime fans around the blogosphere, and I’m very glad to have met her. A darkly twisted story, tightly plotted and lifted by some affectionately humorous character portraits and observations of society, not a word is wasted as Millar leads the reader through a labyrinth of suspicion and doubt. Great fun, and highly recommended – another author to add to my growing list of vintage crime favourites!
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Pushkin Vertigo.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Amy Kellogg and her friend Wilma are on holiday in Mexico City but it’s turning out to be a fraught time. Wilma, always moody and overbearing, is behaving even worse than usual following her second divorce. She’s drinking to excess and arguing with Amy on the slightest provocation. Then, following a drinking session, Wilma dies in a fall from the hotel balcony. Her depressed and emotional state leads the authorities to rule it as a suicide. Amy’s husband, Rupert, rushes to his shocked wife’s side, but when he returns home to San Francisco a week later, he returns alone. Amy, he tells her family, needed time to herself and has gone off to New York. But Amy’s brother Gill doesn’t believe his adored little sister would have gone off without telling him herself, and as time passes with no word from her, his suspicions grow...
Well, this is a little gem! Told in the third person, Millar lets us glimpse inside the heads of all the characters in turn but only giving us enough to tantalise our suspicions. We know that Rupert isn’t telling all he knows but we don’t know what he’s hiding. Is he a wife murderer as Gill suspects? If so, why would he have killed the woman he apparently loved? Gill suspects the age-old story of another woman and has his suspicions of who that woman might be. But if Rupert hasn’t killed her, where is Amy? It’s entirely out of character for her to have gone off on her own, this woman who has always seemed so dependant on others and so meekly subservient to the stronger characters she is surrounded by – her brother, her husband, Wilma. Increasingly desperate, Gill turns to a private detective, Elmer Dodd, and we follow him as he tries to find the truth.
The plotting is great, full of little twists that kept me puzzling over what had happened until the very last page. It’s more of a psychological mystery than a whodunit – the clues are all in the personalities and the things they do that seem out of character. The characterisation is brilliant – done with a light touch but no less astute for that. There’s Rupert’s secretary, nursing a crush for Rupert so secret she’s not even fully aware of it herself. Gill’s wife, long tired of Gill’s almost obsessively over-protective love for his little sister, is trying hard not to be glad that Amy has gone and is fighting against her instinctive hope that she never returns. The maid in the hotel in Mexico, she who listens through the walls of the title, might be a little stereotyped, but her greed and petty criminality are believable, her contempt for the rich Americans who stay in the hotel adds a good deal of humour, and her superstitions are used to give an air of real unease to some parts of the story. Elmer Dodd is excellent too. He’s a man who wants to know the truth but he’s not ruthless about it. He has sympathy for the weaknesses of human nature, and has a kind of warmth that makes people trust him.
This was my introduction to Margaret Millar after having seen her praised by various vintage crime fans around the blogosphere, and I’m very glad to have met her. A darkly twisted story, tightly plotted and lifted by some affectionately humorous character portraits and observations of society, not a word is wasted as Millar leads the reader through a labyrinth of suspicion and doubt. Great fun, and highly recommended – another author to add to my growing list of vintage crime favourites!
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Pushkin Vertigo.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
February 3, 2024
01/2019
From 1959. I love Millar's writing, her observations of life. I think it is cool that she has her own style of mysteries, her own plotting and pacing. I don't really get her obsession with revealing the secret, the killer, on the very last page. This has good parts, but it is not one of her more successful novels, I think. Like the last of hers I read, Beyond This Point Are Monsters, it is all about the relationship between Californians and Mexicans.
From 1959. I love Millar's writing, her observations of life. I think it is cool that she has her own style of mysteries, her own plotting and pacing. I don't really get her obsession with revealing the secret, the killer, on the very last page. This has good parts, but it is not one of her more successful novels, I think. Like the last of hers I read, Beyond This Point Are Monsters, it is all about the relationship between Californians and Mexicans.
August 23, 2021
No sé que tiene Margaret Millar, que es casi la única ahora mismo en novela negra que soy capaz de soportar. Ultimamente tengo poco aguante con este género, porque no soporto las trampas y las manipulaciones argumentales, pero Margaret Millar es una autora muy honesta, que va al grano y casi sin darte cuenta, con un par de diálogos, te ha contado más sobre un personaje, que otros con varias páginas de análisis psicológicos, muchos autores de ahora podrían aprender de ella. La adoro porque además es capaz de hurgar en ese aparente perfecto estilo de vida americano, en esto es como David Lynch: todo parece perfecto en la superficie, sobre todo de las familias, pero cuando profundizas en el caso, hay toda una serie de capas oscuras y turbadoras.
"It was a street of conformity; where identical houses were painted at the same time every spring, a place of rules where gardens, parenthood and the future were planned with equal care, and even if everything went wrong the master plan remained in effect–keep up appearances, clip the hedges, mow the lawn, so that no one will suspect that there’s a third mortgage and that Mother’s headaches are caused by martinis not migraine."
"It was a street of conformity; where identical houses were painted at the same time every spring, a place of rules where gardens, parenthood and the future were planned with equal care, and even if everything went wrong the master plan remained in effect–keep up appearances, clip the hedges, mow the lawn, so that no one will suspect that there’s a third mortgage and that Mother’s headaches are caused by martinis not migraine."
November 30, 2019
On turning the last page, I found myself in agreement with the quote at the front of my copy by Christopher Fowler, author of the Bryant & May mysteries: ‘She can’t write a dull sentence, and her endings always deliver a shock’.
I really enjoyed the depiction of the minor characters and the little details of suburban and domestic life revealed during Elmer Dodd’s interviews with witnesses and potential suspects. Similarly, the clever plotting with clues (or are they red herrings?) at every turn is designed to wrong-foot the reader. It certainly succeeded with me resulting in frequent reassessment of suspects and the likely culprit. The book concludes with what I now know is Millar’s trademark final page reveal.
Described as ‘a suspenseful masterpiece about corrupted love, from a master of American noir’, The Listening Walls will delight fans of classic crime fiction and possibly introduce them to a new author whose other work they can discover.
I really enjoyed the depiction of the minor characters and the little details of suburban and domestic life revealed during Elmer Dodd’s interviews with witnesses and potential suspects. Similarly, the clever plotting with clues (or are they red herrings?) at every turn is designed to wrong-foot the reader. It certainly succeeded with me resulting in frequent reassessment of suspects and the likely culprit. The book concludes with what I now know is Millar’s trademark final page reveal.
Described as ‘a suspenseful masterpiece about corrupted love, from a master of American noir’, The Listening Walls will delight fans of classic crime fiction and possibly introduce them to a new author whose other work they can discover.
February 26, 2012
Another brilliant novel by Millar. It's a long, convoluted story that takes us down various shadowy trails and winds up with a last-minute twist that's like a sobering slap in the face.
March 19, 2020
Wilma Wyatt and Amy Kellogg take a trip to Mexico City. Though they have been friends for years, they are very different and don't always agree on much of anything. Wilma has a forceful personality while Amy is more meek and usually accommodating.
The hotel where Wilma and Amy are staying employs a maid by the name of Consuela Gonzales who speaks perfect English, yet pretends to know only Spanish. She frequently steals small items from the hotel guests and listens to their conversations from behind a wall in the broom closet.
When Wilma purchases an expensive and heavy silver box, Amy is curious. When she realizes that her own husband's initials are carved into the box, Amy becomes even more curious...
The two women have drinks in the hotel bar with a fellow San Franciscan barfly. They both become quite inebriated and return to their room.
Consuela is listening from the broom closet when she hears a scream coming from Wilma and Amy's room. She enters the room only to find Wilma has fatally jumped from the balcony onto the street below...
When Amy's husband, Rupert, learns of Wilma's death, he travels to Mexico City to accompany his wife home. Amy's brother, Gill Brandon, is very close to his sister and dislikes Rupert. He is very concerned about her.
The day after they return to San Francisco, Rupert tells Gill that Amy has left him and taken her small Scottie dog with her. Gill is happy that Amy has left Rupert, but he doesn't for one minute believe that Amy would leave without discussing the situation with him first. His misgivings grow daily and he finally hires a private detective named Elmer Dodd to find his sister Amy and bring her home...
MY THOUGHTS
Though this novel was originally published in 1959, the narrative is constructed with such skill and sharp characterization as to render it timeless. Yes, there are references made to the time period that might seem a bit dated but they in no way influence the pace or the substance of the story. The late fifties were a time when people were invariably judged by their appearance and social standing even more so than they are today.
Margaret Millar teases the reader with hints, yet holds her cards very close to her chest. She writes with shrewd observations of human weakness and motivations.
Millar's skillful writing is given validation by the fact that she was awarded the Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Mystery Writers of America.
I recommend this novel to all readers who enjoy well-written, well paced mystery fiction with special recommendations to those who appreciate classic mystery novels.
The hotel where Wilma and Amy are staying employs a maid by the name of Consuela Gonzales who speaks perfect English, yet pretends to know only Spanish. She frequently steals small items from the hotel guests and listens to their conversations from behind a wall in the broom closet.
When Wilma purchases an expensive and heavy silver box, Amy is curious. When she realizes that her own husband's initials are carved into the box, Amy becomes even more curious...
The two women have drinks in the hotel bar with a fellow San Franciscan barfly. They both become quite inebriated and return to their room.
Consuela is listening from the broom closet when she hears a scream coming from Wilma and Amy's room. She enters the room only to find Wilma has fatally jumped from the balcony onto the street below...
When Amy's husband, Rupert, learns of Wilma's death, he travels to Mexico City to accompany his wife home. Amy's brother, Gill Brandon, is very close to his sister and dislikes Rupert. He is very concerned about her.
The day after they return to San Francisco, Rupert tells Gill that Amy has left him and taken her small Scottie dog with her. Gill is happy that Amy has left Rupert, but he doesn't for one minute believe that Amy would leave without discussing the situation with him first. His misgivings grow daily and he finally hires a private detective named Elmer Dodd to find his sister Amy and bring her home...
MY THOUGHTS
Though this novel was originally published in 1959, the narrative is constructed with such skill and sharp characterization as to render it timeless. Yes, there are references made to the time period that might seem a bit dated but they in no way influence the pace or the substance of the story. The late fifties were a time when people were invariably judged by their appearance and social standing even more so than they are today.
Margaret Millar teases the reader with hints, yet holds her cards very close to her chest. She writes with shrewd observations of human weakness and motivations.
Millar's skillful writing is given validation by the fact that she was awarded the Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Mystery Writers of America.
I recommend this novel to all readers who enjoy well-written, well paced mystery fiction with special recommendations to those who appreciate classic mystery novels.
February 6, 2020
Last year I read and enjoyed Vanish in an Instant (1952), a tightly-plotted murder mystery by the Canadian-American crime writer, Margaret Millar. The Listening Walls is a later work – published some seven years after Vanish in 1959. If anything, TLW is a more accomplished novel, certainly in terms of its premise and insights into the secrets and petty disagreements of suburban life. Certain aspects of the story reminded me of novels by other American crime writers I love and admire – in particular, Patricia Highsmith and Dorothy B. Hughes. All of these writers – Millar included – seem to share an interest in their characters’ psychology and motivations, the difference between an individual’s public persona and their underlying inner world.
The Listening Walls opens in Mexico City where Wilma Wyatt has persuaded her closest friend, Amy Kellogg, to accompany her on a get-away-from-it-all kind of holiday as a break from the routine of their lives in San Francisco. Oddly enough, the two women couldn’t be more different from one another; while Wilma is intolerant, rude and domineering, Amy is shy, submissive and mouse-like, frequently embarrassed by her friend’s disdainful treatment of the Mexican chambermaid.
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2020...
The Listening Walls opens in Mexico City where Wilma Wyatt has persuaded her closest friend, Amy Kellogg, to accompany her on a get-away-from-it-all kind of holiday as a break from the routine of their lives in San Francisco. Oddly enough, the two women couldn’t be more different from one another; while Wilma is intolerant, rude and domineering, Amy is shy, submissive and mouse-like, frequently embarrassed by her friend’s disdainful treatment of the Mexican chambermaid.
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2020...
August 22, 2021
En Las paredes oyen nos encontramos con un crimen cometido en México y una trama desarrollada en Estados Unidos, que originalmente no aborda el clásico interrogante de "¿Quién lo hizo?" sino más bien provoca en el lector la pregunta: "¿Quién es quién en todo este embrollo?"
“... a veces es más fácil aceptar una cosa específica, por más mala que sea, que seguir viviendo con una cantidad de temores oscuros e indefinidos.” (p. 223)
Si bien es una lectura ligera, puede que al comienzo nos sintamos medio perdidos en la trama y nos cueste empatizar con los protagonistas. En mi experiencia, esa sensación comenzó a cambiar con la aparición del investigador privado Dodd y a partir de allí permanecí enganchada hasta el final, que resultó digno para el camino recorrido.
Agradecida de haber descubierto en Margaret Millar una autora más para el misterio policial inteligente e intrigante que todos los lectores nos merecemos al menos una vez al mes... O una vez cada tanto, según el ánimo.
“... a veces es más fácil aceptar una cosa específica, por más mala que sea, que seguir viviendo con una cantidad de temores oscuros e indefinidos.” (p. 223)
Si bien es una lectura ligera, puede que al comienzo nos sintamos medio perdidos en la trama y nos cueste empatizar con los protagonistas. En mi experiencia, esa sensación comenzó a cambiar con la aparición del investigador privado Dodd y a partir de allí permanecí enganchada hasta el final, que resultó digno para el camino recorrido.
Agradecida de haber descubierto en Margaret Millar una autora más para el misterio policial inteligente e intrigante que todos los lectores nos merecemos al menos una vez al mes... O una vez cada tanto, según el ánimo.
January 17, 2022
Margaret Millar is one of the great lost mystery authors. Her novels always seem a little off to me, as if written by a crazy person trying to be normal or by someone who just can't quite follow societal norms. This was the most "normal" novel that I've read of hers. Although not similar, it was strongly reminiscent of Gone Girl and readers who loved that book would enjoy this. Same sort of vibe. It's rare for me to zip through a novel in a day, but I did. I would've read it in one sitting if I could have. Hate how life interferes with my reading. Her characters are engaging, her writing clever, her plotting tight. And there's always a surprise. She's goes on my shelf next to Dorothy B. Hughes, another forgotten author from back in the day.
May 14, 2023
Millar’s work is mostly forgotten these days, her career and reputation overshadowed by her husband Ross Macdonald’s. Macdonald was amazing for sure, perhaps my favorite modern mystery writer. But Millar was equally talented. She’s doing something very different from RM. I’ve only read Beast in View, which was excellent. This is my 2nd Millar, and it’s terrific. Enough bodies and twists to keep you guessing, rotating 3rd POV, and effective but economic psychological depth and character development. Most of her work is only just coming back into print. I highly recommend the kindle versions of her books. The hard copy versions, issued in omnibus volumes, are unreadable without a microscope. Terrible font size.
More folks need to read Millar. A sharp talent.
More folks need to read Millar. A sharp talent.
November 13, 2013
This is one of those convoluted missing persons/murder mysteries where it takes about nine pages of dialogue at the end to explain what was going on. I always feel when an author has to resort to that that they didn't do their job as well as they could have. The story is intriguing nearly all the way through, and I kept waiting for the detective to solve the mystery, and I suppose he must have for the book to end the way that it does, but there seemed to be something missing en route from A to B.
February 15, 2017
Another fine Millar outing, though I have to admit the deluge of dialogue in the penultimate chapters explaining the mystery so that we can get to the finale was almost so overblown that I toyed with the idea of docking another star.
June 9, 2024
No soy lectora asidua del género policial, más bien llego a estos libros por caminos externos y me quedo generalmente en los bordes. En este caso leí un clásico de este tipo de literatura (quería ir a lo seguro, jeje), que forma parte de la selección que hicieron Borges y Bioy Casares en la colección El séptimo círculo, y fue así respondiendo a la consigna de un grupo de lectura del que participo. La experiencia fue diferente a lo habitual, me pasó que no encontraba nada para marcar, acostumbrada como estoy a las reflexiones en los libros, a esas frases que queres dejar guardadas, aquí todo es suceso, historia que se mueve, datos que se conocen, intenciones que se descubren o se dan por descontadas. Me parece un tipo de escritura de mucho escape, que requiere el estar atento a lo que va a pasar. Puedo valorarlo bien desde el lugar de un transitar diferente a lo habitual pero no creo que reincida en el género, al menos no en este que es tan el de la formula clásica: suceso o crimen a resolver, detective que va encontrando las pistas y que finalmente todo sale a la luz con la exposición de cómo pasaron los hechos.
March 1, 2019
Desilusión total.
October 3, 2020
Margaret Millar’s The Listening Walls opens in a room in the Windsor Hotel in Mexico City in the late 1950’s. Two American women are vacationing together. The mousy, deferential Amy Kellogg is feeling some resentment after getting roped into this trip by her domineering friend Wilma Wyatt.
Wilma, thirty-three and just coming off her second divorce, is alternately high-spirited and moody, arrogant and temperamental, a drama queen seeking attention and excitement to distract from a life that wasn’t going as planned. Her presence fills the room and leaves no air for the quiet Amy, who is slowly awakening to see how her own compliant nature has led to a lifetime of her doing only what others want her to do.
In a fit of discontent, Wilma goes to the hotel bar to get drunk. She picks up a young, handsome American ex-pat before Amy comes down to chaperone her. The man keeps ordering rounds for the three of them. The women get drunk, their frustrations with each other boil over into argument, and the man leaves.
The women return to their room. Wilma Wyatt goes over the balcony and plunges to her death on the sidewalk below. A hotel maid arrives seconds later to find Amy Kellogg unconscious on the floor with a head wound. No one else is in the room.
What happened?
According to the police, Wilma killed herself. She was very drunk, emotionally reeling from the divorce, and she had attempted suicide before, at a party, of all places, in the presence of her friends.
Amy can’t remember anything after leaving the bar. She’s not a drinker and has never been drunk before. She also has a concussion.
Her husband, Rupert, travels from San Francisco to collect her from the hospital, but he never brings her home.
When Amy’s paranoid and controlling brother demands to know where his sister is, Rupert Kellogg shows him a letter, written in Amy’s hand, that says she has decided to go away indefinitely. She’s tired of being pushed around by everyone–by Wilma, by her husband, and most of all by her obsessive, relentless brother–and she’s going to live alone for a while, with no one to lean on, so she can develop the confidence and backbone she needs to be a strong, self-sufficient person.
The brother believes none of this. He hires a detective to find his sister, and the detective, of course, begins to see the uglier sides of all the players involved.
One of the strengths of Millar’s work is the vividness of her characters. She can bring them to life with just a sentence or two of description and a few lines of dialog. Without delving into convoluted backstory, you know exactly who you’re dealing with.
Millar’s prose and dialog are always top notch, and she has an exceptional ability to convey the complex and often uncomfortable dynamics between men and women, and between women and women.
The Listening Walls shines mostly for its suspense. You really have no idea whether Amy is alive or dead. You never quite know who is on the right side of things and who is not. Every time you think you know, you learn something new that throws your whole assessment into doubt.
The meat of the story unfolds in the course of the detective’s investigation. Why is Amy’s brother’s wife so fond of Amy’s husband? Why was Wilma so fond of him? Why is his own secretary in love with him? Why does the hotel maid flit in and out of the story? Why does the American ex-pat reappear? Millar writes a juicy mystery with real, engaging characters who you feel you really know, though you can never quite figure out whether you can trust them.
The only weakness in the book is in the near-final scene, the climax in which the most unlikely players enact a most unlikely scene. In a story that is otherwise remarkable for its realism, that key scene requires quite a suspension of disbelief.
That scene seems to resolve everything very neatly, until at last we get one final twist that leaves us, at the end, just as off-balance as we’ve been throughout the book. From beginning to end, Millar delivers everything that mystery readers look for in a mystery, and then leaves you with one more for the road.
Millar is the antidote to so many of today’s flat and formulaic bestsellers that merely go through the motions, serving up cardboard bad guys and illogical plot twists in lazy-minded, second-rate prose. Millar’s plots are well constructed; her prose is sharp, observant, and witty; her characters are true to life, at once complex and vivid. It’s a shame she’s not more widely read.
Wilma, thirty-three and just coming off her second divorce, is alternately high-spirited and moody, arrogant and temperamental, a drama queen seeking attention and excitement to distract from a life that wasn’t going as planned. Her presence fills the room and leaves no air for the quiet Amy, who is slowly awakening to see how her own compliant nature has led to a lifetime of her doing only what others want her to do.
In a fit of discontent, Wilma goes to the hotel bar to get drunk. She picks up a young, handsome American ex-pat before Amy comes down to chaperone her. The man keeps ordering rounds for the three of them. The women get drunk, their frustrations with each other boil over into argument, and the man leaves.
The women return to their room. Wilma Wyatt goes over the balcony and plunges to her death on the sidewalk below. A hotel maid arrives seconds later to find Amy Kellogg unconscious on the floor with a head wound. No one else is in the room.
What happened?
According to the police, Wilma killed herself. She was very drunk, emotionally reeling from the divorce, and she had attempted suicide before, at a party, of all places, in the presence of her friends.
Amy can’t remember anything after leaving the bar. She’s not a drinker and has never been drunk before. She also has a concussion.
Her husband, Rupert, travels from San Francisco to collect her from the hospital, but he never brings her home.
When Amy’s paranoid and controlling brother demands to know where his sister is, Rupert Kellogg shows him a letter, written in Amy’s hand, that says she has decided to go away indefinitely. She’s tired of being pushed around by everyone–by Wilma, by her husband, and most of all by her obsessive, relentless brother–and she’s going to live alone for a while, with no one to lean on, so she can develop the confidence and backbone she needs to be a strong, self-sufficient person.
The brother believes none of this. He hires a detective to find his sister, and the detective, of course, begins to see the uglier sides of all the players involved.
One of the strengths of Millar’s work is the vividness of her characters. She can bring them to life with just a sentence or two of description and a few lines of dialog. Without delving into convoluted backstory, you know exactly who you’re dealing with.
Millar’s prose and dialog are always top notch, and she has an exceptional ability to convey the complex and often uncomfortable dynamics between men and women, and between women and women.
The Listening Walls shines mostly for its suspense. You really have no idea whether Amy is alive or dead. You never quite know who is on the right side of things and who is not. Every time you think you know, you learn something new that throws your whole assessment into doubt.
The meat of the story unfolds in the course of the detective’s investigation. Why is Amy’s brother’s wife so fond of Amy’s husband? Why was Wilma so fond of him? Why is his own secretary in love with him? Why does the hotel maid flit in and out of the story? Why does the American ex-pat reappear? Millar writes a juicy mystery with real, engaging characters who you feel you really know, though you can never quite figure out whether you can trust them.
The only weakness in the book is in the near-final scene, the climax in which the most unlikely players enact a most unlikely scene. In a story that is otherwise remarkable for its realism, that key scene requires quite a suspension of disbelief.
That scene seems to resolve everything very neatly, until at last we get one final twist that leaves us, at the end, just as off-balance as we’ve been throughout the book. From beginning to end, Millar delivers everything that mystery readers look for in a mystery, and then leaves you with one more for the road.
Millar is the antidote to so many of today’s flat and formulaic bestsellers that merely go through the motions, serving up cardboard bad guys and illogical plot twists in lazy-minded, second-rate prose. Millar’s plots are well constructed; her prose is sharp, observant, and witty; her characters are true to life, at once complex and vivid. It’s a shame she’s not more widely read.
December 13, 2012
I don't mean to kick this book down the stairs or anything, but the ending really sucks. I mean that in a "why did you stage it that way? That's so unsatisfying" kind of way. It made me sort of sadly shake my head and think, maybe reading genre fiction isn't for me after all.
Which is too bad, because there are parts of this book that I thought were really great-- there's a sentence in the first paragraph, something about the closet the maid is hiding in being as narrow as the road to heaven, that I wanted to kiss on the mouth when I read it. But the novel, and the language it's constructed from, kind of lost its energy the longer it went on.
There's another Millar book to be found in this town; I might read it, just to help me decide if the ending of this one was a lousy fluke or if she really doesn't have the chops I wished she did.
Which is too bad, because there are parts of this book that I thought were really great-- there's a sentence in the first paragraph, something about the closet the maid is hiding in being as narrow as the road to heaven, that I wanted to kiss on the mouth when I read it. But the novel, and the language it's constructed from, kind of lost its energy the longer it went on.
There's another Millar book to be found in this town; I might read it, just to help me decide if the ending of this one was a lousy fluke or if she really doesn't have the chops I wished she did.
March 1, 2020
Marvelous, just marvelous. It wouldn't be hyperbole to say that Millar, at her best, was the best mystery writer there ever was; okay, she didn't have the plotting elasticity of Agatha, but she was a better writer than the Dame, Chandler, Hammett, her husband Ross Macdonald, any of them. That is, when she was at her best. She makes it all look so effortless. She tells you more about a character or a place in a sentence or two than most writers could in an entire page. She writes with swift economy, and makes everything so vivid - the dialogue is just the kind of thing writers dream of being able to create, and none of it feels forced. The fact that almost no one reads her anymore and even thorough and versatile readers have no idea who she is is just sad.
April 28, 2020
This was a pretty cool mystery - a death occurs yet there is so much ambiguity and clever story telling that I found myself unsure if Wilma really had died, did Amy kill her? Did Amy die and Wilma live? What did the hotel maid have to do with it, if anything? Why is Amy's husband claiming Amy has gone away?
We have a dry witted detective and overly protective brother of Amy in tow as our drivers and searchers. The twist on the last page was surprising, though I did see it coming, on the page before. Very clever and well paced detective novel. Read it for the was it her, or her or him or her guess work throughout.
We have a dry witted detective and overly protective brother of Amy in tow as our drivers and searchers. The twist on the last page was surprising, though I did see it coming, on the page before. Very clever and well paced detective novel. Read it for the was it her, or her or him or her guess work throughout.
September 20, 2017
All time favorite mystery novel of all time!
June 12, 2023
An excellent find which was recommended by Julian Symons in his excellent book about 20th century detective fiction, “Bloody Murder”.
1959 and two American women friends are getting cross with each other in a Mexico City hotel bedroom while a maid, Consuela, has her ear to the wall from her broom cupboard hideaway. One of the women falls to her death from the balcony and the question is did she fall or was she pushed?
The local police confirm it as a suicide but how come the other woman goes missing on her way back to San Francisco and why is her husband claiming that she’s gone to New York on an indefinite break? Her brother is suspicious that the husband has killed her and employs a private detective, Dodd, to investigate.
This is terrific stuff and I would say that Chapter 12, in particular Fowler’s report to Dodd, is a sublime example of noir storytelling.
I’ll be reading many more of her stories.
1959 and two American women friends are getting cross with each other in a Mexico City hotel bedroom while a maid, Consuela, has her ear to the wall from her broom cupboard hideaway. One of the women falls to her death from the balcony and the question is did she fall or was she pushed?
The local police confirm it as a suicide but how come the other woman goes missing on her way back to San Francisco and why is her husband claiming that she’s gone to New York on an indefinite break? Her brother is suspicious that the husband has killed her and employs a private detective, Dodd, to investigate.
This is terrific stuff and I would say that Chapter 12, in particular Fowler’s report to Dodd, is a sublime example of noir storytelling.
I’ll be reading many more of her stories.
March 29, 2021
I read a margaret millar book a few years ago and loved it and had been meaning to read more of her books. anyway I loved this too (not as much as the other one but still). it's refreshing to read older mystery novels because sometimes i feel like contemporary mystery novels all rely on the same tricks and i get bored of them/can see all the twists coming. it's also just cool to read older books that have kind of a different style. millar is a great mystery writer and i will definitely read more of her books!
September 6, 2024
This is a clean and original murder mystery (although the ending was just a little disappointing), written with some of the best metaphors and descriptions I’ve ever read. The characters are clever and original, and there aren’t too many that you can’t keep track of them. The plot is always surprising, so you can’t quite figure out who’s guilty.
The story starts out in Mexico Cit, and then moves back to the U.S., and the settings are very nicely written.
I’ve already downloaded two more Margaret Millar novels from the library. I can’t wait to start one tomorrow.
The story starts out in Mexico Cit, and then moves back to the U.S., and the settings are very nicely written.
I’ve already downloaded two more Margaret Millar novels from the library. I can’t wait to start one tomorrow.
March 3, 2019
La sinopsis invita a una concepción del desarrollo de la novela que, una vez leída, desemboca en un puerto totalmente distinto al pretendido. Lo único que no abandona a uno en toda la lectura es el sabor a decepción y la sensación de un completo chasco.
October 7, 2022
Not the last line doing a spinaroo 💀
March 11, 2024
que decepcionante. la autora intentó demasiado dar un plot twist al final que sorprendiera y descuidó totalmente todo el libro. aburrido, tedioso, poco intrigante. una pérdida de tiempo.
May 16, 2023
I really loved this until the end which was a bit too dramatic though still enjoyable
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 3, 2019
When Wilma dies in a fall from a balcony a chain of events is set off.
In today’s age of crime writing twists, psychological thrillers and domestic noir, it is absolutely fascinating to discover a book originally published sixty years ago in 1959 that has all those elements in the brilliantly written The Listening Walls.
Margaret Millar has created a perfect plot that writhes along, wrong footing the reader and adding surprise after surprise along the way. I genuinely didn’t guess all the outcomes for all the characters so that I finished The Listening Walls feeling I had been brilliantly entertained. Whist there is murder, the skill of the writer comes in her ability to convey her meaning without recourse to overblown visceral descriptions. I loved the style.
The characters initially seem quite simple, but as the narrative progresses, the reader discovers that they have secrets, emotions and motives that are complex and fascinating. There’s an interesting exploration of the difference between public and private personas that any modern reader can appreciate. I found private investigator Elmer Dodd equally as compelling as Christie’s Poirot for example.
And despite the era of the book, where men are frequently socially in control, the writing, characterisation and plot in The Listening Walls all feel incredibly fresh and modern. There is no gender stereotyping here in which person is duplicitous or manipulative and I found more layers to this story than I anticipated so that I thoroughly enjoyed the read.
In The Listening Walls Margaret Millar blends elements of the Golden Age of crime fiction with those to be found in the most popular crime fiction today. I thought it was excellent and am ashamed that I have only just discovered this talented writer. I’ll definitely be reading more of her work as soon as I can.
In today’s age of crime writing twists, psychological thrillers and domestic noir, it is absolutely fascinating to discover a book originally published sixty years ago in 1959 that has all those elements in the brilliantly written The Listening Walls.
Margaret Millar has created a perfect plot that writhes along, wrong footing the reader and adding surprise after surprise along the way. I genuinely didn’t guess all the outcomes for all the characters so that I finished The Listening Walls feeling I had been brilliantly entertained. Whist there is murder, the skill of the writer comes in her ability to convey her meaning without recourse to overblown visceral descriptions. I loved the style.
The characters initially seem quite simple, but as the narrative progresses, the reader discovers that they have secrets, emotions and motives that are complex and fascinating. There’s an interesting exploration of the difference between public and private personas that any modern reader can appreciate. I found private investigator Elmer Dodd equally as compelling as Christie’s Poirot for example.
And despite the era of the book, where men are frequently socially in control, the writing, characterisation and plot in The Listening Walls all feel incredibly fresh and modern. There is no gender stereotyping here in which person is duplicitous or manipulative and I found more layers to this story than I anticipated so that I thoroughly enjoyed the read.
In The Listening Walls Margaret Millar blends elements of the Golden Age of crime fiction with those to be found in the most popular crime fiction today. I thought it was excellent and am ashamed that I have only just discovered this talented writer. I’ll definitely be reading more of her work as soon as I can.
July 30, 2019
I've now read enough Millar to expect an extreme twist at the end of the story, but here she tries too hard and it's a train wreck, owing something perhaps to the weakest plot element of The Moonstone. Up to around the last 20 pages, it's a terrifically engaging thriller, with violent death, a "gone girl" spousal disappearance, private detective, and plenty of suspicious behavior. Millar is great at telling a story from multiple and very diverse viewpoints.
December 21, 2015
Man, Millar can just write. I love her quiet, comfortable use of the semi-omniscient narrator to undercut the way the characters see themselves, something that's done so masterfully and so pointedly that I was grinning to myself every couple pages. The characterizations are also reliably complex, and such a refreshing change from how, for example, women, private detectives, and faithful!husbands are sometimes portrayed in much-derided 'genre writing.' There's a lull toward the end of the book, but the ending is such a great payoff that all is instantly forgiven. Completely fabulous.
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