REVIEW: The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White
I can’t recall what prompted me to buy this book, but I think at the time I acquired it I was aware that it was the basis of Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes”, which I’ve seen parts of on cable over the years. However, I then didn’t read it for several months, by which time I’d forgotten.
(Also I just realized that Jayne reviewed this only a little over a year ago. Cementing for me that my memory just isn’t what it used to be.)
Anyway, I was actually partway through reading the book when I saw a commercial for “The Lady Vanishes” on Turner Classic Movies (my television home-away-from-home), and suddenly remembered! Which I guess could have been seen as spoiling the book for me, but I feel like the trope that at the center of the story (whether this book is the genesis of that trope or not) is ubiquitous enough at this point that I would’ve figured it out.
The Wheel Spins opens thusly:
The day before the disaster, Iris Carr had her first premonition of danger. She was used to the protection of a crowd, whom—with unconscious flattery—she called “her friends.” An attractive orphan of independent means, she had been surrounded always with clumps of people. They thought for her—or rather, she accepted their opinions, and they shouted for her—since her voice was rather too low in register, for mass social intercourse.
Iris is staying with “her friends” at a small hotel in a rural part of an unidentified country that felt like Switzerland to me (but Switzerland is mentioned as a separate country at one point in the book, so I think maybe it’s supposed to be something a little further east?). Lovely, but a bit boring for Iris’ boisterous crowd, who annoy the other hotel guests and eventually leave en masse. Iris declines to go with them as there has recently been a bit of a brouhaha involving one of the husbands of the group, who formed an (apparently unrequited) attachment to Iris. She decides it’s safer to wait a day or so and return to England on her own.
Her last days at the hotel are spent mostly avoiding the other guests: a minister and his wife (pining for their baby back at home), two rather snobby maiden sisters, and a honeymooning couple who themselves seem to prefer their own company (others suspect that they aren’t actually newlyweds at all).
Iris eventually ends up on a train home, but not before a strange incident at the train station where she appears to succumb to sunstroke and is tended by a gaggle of older local ladies, whose language is impenetrable to Iris. With the help of a porter, Iris is shoved on a train that has already begun moving, and ends up in a car full of inhospitable people who don’t speak English and seem actively hostile to her. She is rescued by the one other Englishwoman in the car, an ex-governess named Miss Froy who is returning to her parents after a long time away.
Iris would normally not have much in common with the voluble Miss Froy, but she finds herself going to the tea car with her, encountering on the way all of the other hotel residents that she had previously tried to avoid: the minister and his wife, the sisters, and the maybe-not-married-couple. She also spies a heavily bandaged woman being taken care of by several attendants.
Shortly after, Miss Froy disappears, and when Iris tries to discover where she’s gone to, the other passengers (lead by an intimidating older lady only referred to as the baroness) deny that she was ever in the car, and then later, produce another woman who is clearly not Miss Froy.
Iris begins to question her sanity, but feels an obligation to Miss Froy to discover what happened to her. She enlists the help two other Englishmen whom she had previously overheard talking at the train station; the younger, a Mr. Hare, seems to entertain Iris’ beliefs, perhaps simply because he wants to know her better.
Again, knowing what I know from the movie, it wasn’t hard to put together the pieces of what was happening, and indeed an earlier conversation between Iris and Miss Froy gave me a hint as to why, at least in a general sense. Still, this story moved along at a good pace and kept me entertained. Iris is the sort of early-mid-20th century heroine that I probably should judge a little more harshly than I do – she doesn’t contribute much to society and she’s not particularly nice. But she’s somehow a sympathetic protagonist, especially as her alienation increases during the search for Miss Froy.
I’m giving The Wheel Spins a B+, and I’ll be searching out some of the author’s other works.
Best,
Jennie
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Ooh, you liked this one a little bit more than I did.
I read Jayne’s review and then forgot to find the book. In general I enjoy mysteries set in this time period. I don’t think I’ve seen any of the movie.
@LML: It’s a good movie – I think there are some differences from the book but I don’t remember what they are.
The Lady Vanishes is one of my favourite movies, with a great cast. As a cricket fan, I particularly love Charters and Caldicott, the two Englishmen whose only thought, amid all the danger that envelops them, is to keep up to date with the score of the Test match in Manchester.
I read the book many years ago and found it to be entertaining enough, but I thought at the time that the movie version had improved the story.
@Jennie: From what I remember, the main difference is the reason why Miss Froy is targeted got changed in the movie to match the pre-war tensions in Europe.
@oceanjasper: Those two don’t appear in the book – I might be due for a full sit-down watch of the movie. (Do other people have movies like that – they’ve seen parts enough to say that they’ve “seen the movie” but at the same time they’ve never watched it in one go from beginning to end? My most extreme example might be “Gone With the Wind” – believe me when I say I have SEEN that movie but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in anything but parts.)
@Jayne: Oh, right – I swear you either told me that or I read it on Wikipedia. (Or in your review? My poor memory!)
@Jennie: I think the first time I ever saw the movie was a showing on either TCM or AMC and I knew nothing about it besides the fact that Hitchcock directed it. I liked it so much that I eventually bought the DVD.