Book description
An extremely mesmerising woman, Venetia holds everyone she comes across
enraptured. So when Venetia is found dead in suspicious circumstances
the question is: exactly who would want to kill the beautiful Venetia?
Those who were close to Venetia find themselves forced together as the
web around this compelling woman rapidly unfolds. Suspicion and mistrust
mount to boiling point as events reveal more and more about the kind of
woman Venetia really was. Who Calls the Tune oozes the claustrophobic
atmosphere it creates until the reader feels as though they are
ensconced amongst the pages, alongside this quirky cast of characters.
This novel is a classic murder mystery which will keep you guessing
until the final pages. Nina Bawden was one of Britain's most
distinguished and best-loved novelists for both adults and young people.
Several of her novels for children - Carrie's War, a Phoenix Award
winner in 1993; The Peppermint Pig, which won the Guardian Fiction
Award; The Runaway Summer; and Keeping Henry - have become contemporary
classics. She wrote over forty novels, slightly more than half of which
are for adults, an autobiography and a memoir describing her experiences
during and following the Potters Bar rail crash in May 2002, which
killed her husband, Austen Kark, and from which she emerged seriously
injured - but fighting. She was shortlisted for the 1987 Man Booker
Prize for Circles of Deceit and several of her books, like Family Money
(1991), have been adapted for film or television. Many of her works have
been translated into numerous languages. Born in London in 1925, Nina
studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University in the
same year as Margaret Thatcher. Following Potter's Bar, she was movingly
portrayed as a character in the David Hare play, The Permanent Way,
about the privatization of the British railways. She received the
prestigious S T Dupont Golden Pen Award for a lifetime's contribution to
literature in 2004, and in 2010 The Birds on the Trees was shortlisted
for the Lost Booker of 1970. Bawden passed away on Wednesday 22 August
2012, at her home in North London with her family around her.
