Books by Melba Marlett

Eleanor, Martha, and Penny King, though sisters, grow up in separate households, their lives linked yet completely individual. This intimate novel about them shows the three ways in which women can work out their own destinies in today's world.Eleanor, charming and serene, becomes the successful wife of a successful businessman. Yet beneath the comfort and tranquillity of her outward life are frustration and incompleteness.Penny, as greedy as she is breath-takingly beautiful, decides that she will take anything she wants from the world. In return she gives nothing, not even honest passion. Her reward is contempt and dislike from those she believes to be her friends.Martha is a talented, common-sense girl who makes a reputation as a teacher and writer before she marries Bill Knight-and discovers that, once married, a woman's life is no longer her own.How each of these sisters solves her own problem in her own way is the theme of this provocative novel by an author already successful in another field of fiction. Mrs. Marlett's story is a warm and human narrative of women in search of fulfillment in a world in which women's responsibilities have enlarged along with their opportunities.

In two novellettes and three short stories Melba Marlett's wry and penetrating comments on the ever-shifting relationships between individiuals have an impact far beyond the sheer delight of her plots. Written with versatility, these incisive portraits probe various aspects of midcentury American life. Melba Marlett, the author of several first-class mysteries and the major novel TOMORROW WILL BE MONDAY, writes with insight and a distinctive style all her own.

The dead woman looked strangely like Dolores Kennedy, only child of wealthy parents. But it was Dolores herself who stumbled over the body outside the exclusive Philadelphia girls' school she attended. And Inspector Davis could find nothing but coincidence to tie the two together. It was this striking resemblance that kept Davis hunting odd facts and tracking peculiar clues for more than a year. During those months a man was tried for the murder and acquitted. Dolores sank into a deep lethargy, and her interest in life was aroused only by the appearance next door of a very elgible bachelor, a man whose suave manners and social compentence were belied by his private behavior. Dolores started by being curious about her neighbor, and ended up deeply attracted to him. Their unusual relationship, plus the sudden appearance of an old flame of Dolores's, brought this strange case to an unexpected climax -- which Inspector Davis resolved almost by remote control!