Margaret Millar: The Listening Walls (UK 2019)

From the Publisher:
Wilma Wyatt died when she hit the pavement - on that, and on nothing else, the eyewitnesses agree. Now her body lies lifeless in the street outside her Mexico City hotel, but a story of blackmail, missing persons and murder, stretching all the way to San Francisco, is only just beginning.

Back in California, private detective Elmer Dodd looks for answers, but this is a mystery that grows more twisted at every turn, and blood will be spilled again before he gets to the truth.

The Listening Walls is a suspenseful masterpiece about corrupted love, from a master of American noir.

"Unfairly forgotten... [Millar] writes more psychologically complex characters than Christie, but uses the same bag of tricks and has great surprise endings" -- Alex Michaelides, Guardian Book Clinic
"Demonstrates her art at its beautifully tricky best... [Readers] will be in for a stunning surprise" -- Sunday Times
"Miss Millar knows how to make her story-line twist like a snake" - TLS

Margaret Millar: The Listening Walls. A classic mystery. Pushkin Press, ISBN: 9781782275756 (October, 2019), Pushkin Vertigo, 224 p., £9.99, eBook £6.99 (?).

Margaret Millar: The Listening Walls (USA 2025)

From the Publisher:
In this suspenseful masterpiece about corrupted love, Rupert Kellogg's wife, Amy, goes missing after an ill-fated trip to Mexico -- and Rupert becomes the focus of a paranoid investigation.

Amy Kellogg is not having a pleasant vacation in Mexico. She's been arguing nonstop with her friend and traveling companion, Wilma, and she wants nothing more than to go home to the Bay Area. But an uncomfortable stay in a Mexican hotel takes a nightmarish turn when Wilma is found dead on the street below their room -- an apparent suicide.

Rupert Kellogg has just returned from seeing his wife Amy through the difficulties surrounding the apparent suicide of her friend in Mexico. But Rupert is returning alone -- which worries Amy's brother. Amy was traumatized by the suicide, Rupert explains, and has taken a holiday in New York City to settle her nerves. But as gone girl Amy's absence drags on for weeks and then months, the sense of unease among her family changes to suspicion and eventual allegations.

Margaret Millar: The Listening Walls. Soho Press, ISBN: 9781681990415 (December, 2015), $14.95, eBook $4.99.

Margaret Millar: The Listening Walls (USA 1986)

From the Publisher:
Two women travel together. One mysteriously falls to her death from a balcony in a Mexico City hotel. The other returns to San Francisco and then disappears.

"For psychological subtlety and brilliant detection, nobody can outfox Margaret Millar." -- Marilyn Stasio

"A plot of a devious and surprising complexity, with one of the best trick endings ever; but the unobtrusive brilliance of Mrs. Millar's technical mystery-writing never interferes with her powers as a novelist." -- Anthony Boucher, The New York Times

Margaret Millar: The Listening Walls. International Polygonics, ISBN: 0930330528 (September, 1986), 236 p., $4.95.

Margaret Millar: The Listening Walls (USA 1975)

From the Publisher:
Amy Kellogg and Wilma Wyatt appeared simply to be two bored, wealthy American ladies on holiday in Mexico City. But when Wilma suddenly, inexplicably, jumped to her death from the hotel window, the carefree vacation turned into tragedy.

Then Amy mysteriously vanished, leaving behind her personal fortune -- and her strong-willed husband, Rupert, and her ever-solicitous brother, Gil; each dependent on her wealth, each distrusting the other. Under a cloud of mutual suspicion the two men were relentlessly propelled toward the secrets behind Wilma's death and Amy's disappearance -- a search that could give each man a new life... or a sudden death!

"BRILLIANT!" -- The New York Times

Margaret Millar: The Listening Walls. A vacation jaunt becomes an ordeal of terror and death. Avon Books, ISBN: 0380004143 (August, 1975), 172 p., $1.25.

Margaret Millar: The Listening Walls (USA 1964)

From the Publisher:
THE LISTENING WALLS
It was a fatal holiday in Mexico City for two bored American women. One of them died -- supposedly a suicide. The other disappeared, leaving behind a husband, a brother and a personal fortune. Working subtly and relentlessly against each other, husband and brother began a search for the woman -- a search that could give each new life, or sudden death.

"One of the finest... terrific... top flight mystery writer" -- SACRAMENTO BEE
"The finest modern fusion of 'straight novel' and 'novel of suspense'... a plot of devious and surprising complexity with one of the best trick endings ever... unobtrusive brilliance" -- Anthony Boucher, The New York Times
"As always in Millar, the smooth convolution of plot and deception are scarcely visible until the shock of the ending reveals them... glorious job" -- San Francisco Chronicle

MARGARET MILLAR is recognized as one of America's leading novelists of suspense. Her novel Beast in View was given the Edgar Allan Poe award by her fellow members of Mystery Writers of America.

Margaret Millar: The Listening Walls. Dell Great Mystery Library #4863 (March, 1964), 221 p., ¢60.

Margaret Millar: The Listening Walls (USA 1959)

From the Publisher:
If Amy and Wilma had been asked why they made their fatal journey to Mexico City, either of them could have given a reasonable answer. They went to Mexico because they could afford to, or because San Francisco bored them, or because Mexico offered a final fling at the romance which respectable women in their thirties sometimes feel they have missed. The romance they found was ugly, edged with danger. One of them died in Mexico, and the other failed to return.

From this unsettling premise, Margaret Millar's new novel moves rapidly into the situation Amy and Wilma left behind them. Amy had a husband and a brother, and a personal fortune. Working subtly and desperately against each other, the two men plunge into a search for the lost woman. The search moves back and forth between San Francisco and Mexico City, involving other lives, and another death, and mounting to a climax of almost unbearable moral intensity.

THE LISTENING WALLS confirms Mrs. Millar's dazzling talent. It has, besides, a deeply human touch which will appeal to her widening circle of readers. And old aficionados may notice that its 310 page ends with the most expertly withheld solution in the long history of mystery fiction.

Margaret Millar: The Listening Walls. A Novel of Supense. New York: Random House, 1959, 236 p., $?.??.