Perhaps because the action opens in a women's fashionable house, and certainly because its two dominant figures are women, [The Fashion in Shrouds (1938)] has an obsessively feminine quality that sets it apart. Each of the principal women is at the top of her profession: Georgia Wells is a star emotional actress, and Valentine Ferris, Mr. Campion's sister, a major fashion designer. Both are important to the mystery, Val as its victim for a time, and Georgia as its "raison d'etre," but the author is at least as interested in them as formidably successful career women. In particular, she is occupied by the conflict between their worldly success and what she sees as their essential dependence as women.

Throughout the novel, lightly at first, but with increasing seriousness as the action develops, the differences between men and women are emphasised. (p. 117)

The author's clear conviction that men and women...