Miss Mapp, a small-minded, small-town heiress of "a certain age," leads a full life . . . of spying on (and attempting to best) her neighbors. A classic comic novel from the author of "Queen Lucia." P"This latest book is clever, as all that [Benson] does is clever, light, amusing, satirical, written in the smooth and easy style his earlier books have made familiar to us. Its people are real: one acknowledges their verisimilitude, and is deeply, humbly grateful to that beneficent fortune which was so kind as to cast one's lot elsewhere than in Tilling, the home of Miss Mapp." -- The New York Times