The #1956Club - Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart

Wildfire at Midnight, Mary Stewart's second novel, brings suspense, murder and affairs of the heart to that most romantic of locations, the Isle of Skye. 

Like Charity Selbourne in Madam, Will You Talk?, (Stewart's first novel published a year previously) our heroine is a feisty, independent woman who is not afraid to take risks. It is 1953, the year of the coronation, and model Gianetta  is on her way to Scotland for a holiday. Having married young she is already divorced, and her fashion designer employer has told her to take a break. Her parents have given her the details of the Camasunary Hotel, so off she goes to Skye; the hotel is so remote that she must take a boat across Loch Scavaig to reach it;

'the water lay quiet as a burnished shield, reflecting in deeper blue and deeper gold the pageantry of the sky. One thin gleaming line, bright as a rapier, quivered between the world of reality and the water-world below.....The shore slid past; scree and heather, overhung with summer clouds of birch, flowed by us, and our wake arrowed the smooth water into ripples of copper and indigo.'

Already an atmosphere both dreamy and mystical is established; we are certainly not in London, nor even Edinburgh, any more. Often when I come across a page of description in a book, my heart sinks, but Stewart is no ordinary writer - she brings Skye alive, and anyone who has been there will recognise the accuracy of her depiction of the island in fine weather and foul, the two often being experienced within the same hour.

On the journey, Gianetta picks up the first hints of all not being well in The Black Cuillin. Neither the captain nor Gianetta's only fellow passenger, Roderick Grant, want to talk about the nearest peak, Blaven - but why? 

'"That mountain? ...You didn't speak of it before. What's it called?"

The boatman took his cigarette from his mouth and spat into the water. "Blah-ven" he repeated, in his soft highland voice, "Mmphh...mm"'

Arriving at the hotel, Gianetta finds that almost everyone else is there for the fishing or climbing, neither of which she knows a thing about; luckily she also meets Marcia Maling, a glamorous actress whose director has told her to take a rest. Marcia has even less interest in outdoor pursuits, swans around in a huge white car driven by her chauffeur-with-benefits Fergus (a Skye native) and is happy to share Pink Gins and gossip with Gianetta, thereby filling us in on all the other guests. These include acclaimed climber Ronald Beagle, writer Hubert Hay, unhappy couple Hartley and Alma Corrigan, fishing fanatics Colonel and Mrs Cowdray-Simpson, teachers Marion Bradford and Roberta Symes, and an old friend of Gianetta's, Alastair Braine. 

But happy as she is to impart information, even Marcia won't talk about Blaven - and before Gianetta can push her any further, footsteps on the gravel herald the entrance of none other than Gianetta's ex-husband, the moody, broody Nicholas Drury. He's doing research for his next book - or so he says. Gianetta retreats

'back into the room like a pea from a catapult' (Stewart's similes are often brilliant)

immediately amends the hotel register to show her maiden name, and resolves to have nothing to do with the man who has broken her heart. 

1953 was a momentous year, not only for its royal event, but for Edmund Hillary's attempt to climb Everest. The latter is mentioned throughout the book, Beagle and Colonel Cowdray-Simpson being particularly obsessed with it. I found Stewart's anchoring of her story in this way very effective; it becomes 'real' despite its ethereal quality. What's more, the climb isn't just thrown in for effect; its relevance becomes all too clear in the final chapters.

At dinner Gianetta sees Marcia flirting with Hartley Corrigan, but despite Alma's obvious unhappiness about this, she concludes that Marcia's attractions are not her own fault;

'She could no more help being pulled into the orbit of the nearest interesting man than she could help breathing'

and that Alma shouldn't be so spineless. I did find this attitude a little hard to take - both Marcia and Hartley are appalling philanderers - but perhaps in 1953 it would seem less objectionable. 

After dinner, bossy Marion, who has no truck with niceties, shocks everyone by announcing that she and her much younger companion Roberta will climb Blaven the next day. On an after dinner walk (more evovcative description;

'night itself [on a summer evening] is only a faint dusting-over of the day, a wash of silver through the still-warm gold of the afternoon.')

Roderick Grant finally tells Gianetta what has happened - Heather, the daughter of crofter Dougal Macrae, has been murdered on the mountain, her body found at midnight, laid out in ceremonial manner on a bonfire; she has been covered in ashes, her throat slit. Her shoes and jewellery had been removed and were found neatly stacked close by. Her boyfriend, local lad Jamesy Farlane, is chief suspect, but he denies all knowledge, saying that the two had argued, and that Heather had told him she was going to meet a man. 'A gentleman from the hotel.'

The only man staying at the hotel who has a proper alibi is Fergus. 

The next evening, Marion and Roberta do not return from their climb, and Dougal alleges that he saw them heading up the gully in the company of an unidentified man. A storm blows up, and the local mountain rescue group (which, for some inexplicable reason, the totally inexperienced Gianetta and Alma are allowed to accompany) eventually finds Marion's body - the women's rope has been cut and she has hurtled to her death - but there is no sign of Roberta. During the continuing search for her, Beagle informs everyone that Hillary has conquered Everest. Later, in pitch dark, Gianetta decides to return to the hotel and is left to do so entirely on her own, (which does seem a tad unlikely now, let alone 60 years ago.) On her descent she comes across another bonfire and another corpse.

The police, in the shape of Inspector McKenzie and his sergeant, begin their enquires. Gianetta, as the only person who could not have killed Heather, is partially taken into McKenzie's confidence, but I am glad to say that there is no hint of her being asked to 'help' them - an all too convenient and much overused device in many modern novels. There follows a plethora of clues and red herrings, both regarding the murders and Nicholas's behaviour - Gianetta beginning to fear that the two are inextricably connected. (She is also none to pleased to see her ex in a torrid embrace with Marcia... and I enjoyed her little aside; '"Nicky" - I bet she spells it Nikki'.)

There is also a charming interlude in which Gianetta agrees to do a photo shoot for Hubert Hay, whose literary works are in fact rather whimsical travel guides published under the nom de plume of 'Footloose';

'"To you in your armchair I bring the glories of the English countryside...And the Scotch. That's why I'm here."'

Mary Stewart is so good at developing minor characters, and I loved Hubert and his Paisley dressing gown, his knowledge of the countryside and his 'irrepressible gaiety' - but again, he is not brought in simply to entertain. He alone has met Heather, and had asked her whether there was any magic still going on in the Islands;

'"She shut up like an oyster and pretty near hustled me out of the kitchen."'

When Roberta is found (by Gianetta - who else?) alive but comatose, the hope is that she alone will be able to identify Marion's killer. Stewart uses the waiting time to give the Colonel the opportunity to expound his principled views on acts of aggression, be they individual murder or war between nations;

'"I would assert that once the idea of extreme physical violence has occurred to a man as an acceptable solution to any problem, then he is in danger of forfeiting his claim to consideration as a civilised human being."'

These words were written just eleven years after the end of the Second World War, and it would be interesting to know if they reflect Stewart's own view; the reader certainly gets the impression that they do.

Gianetta, having dinner in the kitchen on her return, learns from cook that there have been far more deaths than usual on the hill this year. Stewart, who lived in a house on the shore of Loch Awe in the West Highlands for many years (although she was not Scottish by birth) has a fine ear for dialect; the chatter of cook and maid is wholly convincing;

'"Mony's the yin that hasnae been sae lucky - and I canna mind a waur simmer."'

During the long night in which she and Hector sit with Roberta, Gianetta comes across a copy of The Golden Bough; when it falls open at a page about the Beltane sacrifices, she begins to put two and two together, but is horrified when an envelope addressed to Nicholas drops out; it is his book. 

The plot is brought to a climax when Gianetta, out in a sudden Skye mist, is confronted by the murderer. A chase through bog and fog, and up the very mountain itself, ensues, and it is to Stewart's credit that I was gripped to the very end by these terrifying scenes. And once the killer is caught, we learn more about the reasons for that person's actions, and the sorry story that has led to them.

Wildfire at Midnight is not without its faults, but for me these are few and easily surmountable because Stewart's writing is so good. (She herself once said 'I am first and foremost a teller of tales.') Attitudes to women have (one hopes) moved on - as has behaviour, for in true 1950s' style none of these characters ever stops smoking.  Gianetta is not quite as independent as Charity Selbourne will be, but she is a clear forerunner. This is still a great story, its setting beautifully described, its plot skillfully developed and its engaging characters vividly drawn. I loved it.

Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart was published in 1956 by Hodder & Stoughton.