Vanity Dies Hard
A stand-alone novel published by John Long in 1966
Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man …
Alice Whittaker was 37, rich but plain, with no career. Her life was a lonely failure. She had got by with the one thing she did have, money.
Then handsome Andrew Fielding came into her life, and just as suddenly, her beautiful friend, Nesta, vanished from it, leaving a trail of confusing clues.
Notes
Abridged for BBC Radio 4 by Cristina Sellors and read by Myrtle Leaman in 1970.
I was more pleased with the tv adaptation of Vanity Dies Hard, than anything for quite a while. Eleanor David is exactly as I imagined the main character, Alice. And Jane Gurnett is a great surprise …
—Ruth Rendell 1
Contemporary Reads 2
Ian Nairn - Nairn’s London
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood
Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea
Mary Renault - The Mask of Apollo
Iris Murdoch - The Time of the Angels
Josef Škvorecký - The Mournful Demeanour Of Lieutenant Boruvka