Skeleton Key

“Grettry Rd. was no place for a housewife with a wholesome regard for her own safety, but as the sign said, it was ‘Not a Through Street.’ Once you were in, you couldn’t get out…” Thus begins the cover copy of the Dell edition of Skeleton Key, first published in 1943. Lurid? Sure. Purple? The very purest plum. But it doesn’t tell you that the housewife is Georgine Wyeth, a young widow keeping house for herself and her young daughter, and paying the rent—scrambling for it—by typing for a local academic, a scientific gentleman. Working late one night (there’s a war on, you know), she gets caught in a blackout, only to trip over the body of an air-raid warden. A simple accident? Or something more sinister? And could Georgine’s work for that scientific gentleman somehow have put her in jeopardy? With an introduction to Lenore Glen Offord's life and work by critic Sarah Weinman.