The Clock Strikes Twelve by Patricia Wentworth is the perfect book to read as we head toward the new year. Wealthy businessman James Paradine gathers his family members for the traditional New Year’s Eve dinner and declares that one of them has betrayed the family without revealing the name of the accused. Soon after the clock strikes twelve, Paradine dies and one of the household is a murderer. Retired governess and private detective Miss Maud Silver is called in to help the police solve this classic English country house mystery.

Patricia Wentworth (1877-1961) is the pseudonym of Dora Amy Elles. She was a prolific novelist and best known for her Miss Silver series of detective novels. The 32 stories in this series are great examples of the British Golden Age mysteries and often feature romantic elements as well as clever plots. Miss Silver is often compared to Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple; both frequently figure out the solutions to the mysteries with knitting needles in hand.

We have almost all the Miss Silver novels, as well as a number of other works, in our Patricia Wentworth Special Collection. If you would like to help us provide more public-domain titles like these, then come join us and proofread a few pages. For more information, check out our companion site, Distributed Proofreaders Canada.