A fragment of fear

Summary: "In a recuperative trip in Italy after a car accident, reporter and novelist James Compton is witness to the discovery of a murder victim, a woman who had been vacationing at the same hotel. Lucy Dawson seemed like a gentle old lady, and so the motive for her death appeared to be unmeditated assault. But when he returns to England and makes a benign inquiry into her background, Compton receives a note warning him to leave the past alone -- a note clearly written on his own typewriter, though his apartment shows no sign of a break-in. Unable to resist pursuing the unfinished story, Compton's own investigation reveals a sinister side to Lucy Dawson and a cold-blooded conspiracy she may have helped to perpetrate while alive. Suddenly Compton finds a dangerous net closing in around him: threatening phone calls, terrifying invasions of privacy, and no way of proving to the police that anyone is responsible but himself."--Publisher description.