No real attempt at characterisation (strangely enough, apart from a parrot who is quite good). It's a good story, and it's not badly delivered - I've heard a lot worse - though other reviewers are right that the style isn’t particularly fluid, and basically it's just being read rather than performed, albeit in a pleasant voice. Not only does Vanessa find out what's happening with her husband, getting pitched into a mystery along the way, but she also learns that Tim isn't anyone's 'little boy' instead a resourceful and rather nice young man more than capable of getting involved in whatever is going on. so, lumbered with Carmel's young son Timmy as a travelling companion, she sets off to find out for herself. Vanessa becomes aware (though her mother's gloriously awful friend, Carmel, briefly read but you get a real ‘sense’ for the ghastly woman) that Lewis may not be where he said he was going. Vanessa and her husband Lewis have fallen out when their planned time together had to be scrapped so Lewis could go back to work abroad, and not for the first time. It was never one of my top favourites, though I did enjoy it - but somehow the story never really 'gripped' me, (though it did give me an ambition to go to Vienna one day to see the Spanish Riding School). This is another of the old, well loved, Mary Stewart murder / mystery / romance set of novels mainly written between the 1950s and 1970, well before her Arthurian books. Odd reading, yet it still enhanced the book I absolutely defy anyone - animal lover or no - not to reach for the tissues when Old Piebald is centre stage. And also with the story of one very special horse.

The narrator certainly came into her own with the scenes of great jeopardy. But this is a minor quibble, given that the content of most of the dialogue made it clear enough. But, like a previous reviewer, I did have a little difficulty knowing who was speaking in those dialogues involving Vanessa and Timothy, where the author hadn't written he said/she said to help me out. The narrator was at her best with the narrative parts, with creating suspense, and with dialogue that involved people speaking in differing accents. It's a story that takes a little while to get to the exciting parts but, once it does, there's no stopping it. I rather enjoyed not knowing what was coming, and just letting the narrator take me wherever the plot would lead. This is the one Mary Stewart book that, despite being such a fan, I somehow had never read. Very enjoyable and, in places, very likely to bring on tears!

Airs Above the Ground by Mary Stewart