When Marina Hays reluctantly agrees to spend the weekend at a country house with her friends Marge and Elizabeth Packett, she doesn’t expect to spend most of her time holding nails and boards for its handsome owner, Bruce Collyer, who’s too preoccupied with making repairs to even remember her name, although he announces to the other guests that he plans to marry her someday. She also doesn’t expect the weekend activities to include murder. But when it happens, it’s Marina’s powers of observation and quick wits that help the police figure out who the murderer is.

Young Sonny Saunders, who’s about to turn 21 and come into his inheritance, believes that whenever the black lady—an old-fashioned china doll—leaves the mantle where she’s displayed, she can be heard walking through the house at night and bad things will happen. Is it a coincidence that Marina hears the rustling of a taffeta skirt in the attic above her room whenever the doll disappears, or that murder soon follows?

Originally published in 1942, The Black Rustle is vintage Little, full of eccentric characters and unlikely clues and featuring a smart-mouthed heroine who can more than holder own with a maddening suitor.

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