A review by paulataua
Beast In View by Margaret Millar

4.0

Helen is a rich recluse living alone in a hotel room when she receives a phone call from a woman, Evelyn Merrick, who claims to be an acquaintance of hers from way back. Ms. Merrick then forewarns Helen that she will soon be in a terrible accident. Merrick is to become her stalker, and on Helen’s request, Paul Blacksheer, her financial advisor, begins to search for the threatening woman before something bad happens. An intriguing noir in which everything is not quite what it seems , including an ending that surprises, though probably not half as much as it must have done in 1956. While reading, I was not always clear what was going on with all the red herrings, but my confusion was cleared up by the end. Most surprising, it was only much later that I began to realize how clever a novel it is.