The prime suspect is one of their neighbors, the handsome, arrogant son of a famous British actor-turned-hermit, although he's not the only one with secrets to hide. At least, it appears idyllic, but on her first morning there, someone shoots at a tame dolphin, a young Greek boy drowns off the coast of Albania, and soon afterward a smuggler washes up dead in a nearby cove. Lucy Waring, a young British stage actress whose first big play folded abruptly, is having a hard time finding work, so she accepts an invitation to stay with her married sister on the idyllic Ionian island of Corfu. One such novel heavily dependent upon a sense of place is 1964's This Rough Magic, a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel in 1965 (beaten out by John Le Carré's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold). She turned to writing novels in the 1950s and is considered to be one of the founders of 'romantic suspense.' Her marriage to Sir Frederick Stewart, one-time chairman of the Geology Department of Edinburgh University, led to extensive travels that provided inspiration for the detailed exotic settings her novels are famous for. Mary Stewart (1916-2014) was born in Sunderland, County Durham, England, and graduated from Durham University, later serving as a lecturer in English Language and Literature there.

This rough magic by mary stewart