Shute Nevil. The Breaking Wave (Requiem for a Wren)

Vintage, 2009. First published 1955One of Shute's darkest books; Alan Duncan had flown in the R.A.F., and returns to his ancestral home on an Australian sheep ranch, wounded and disillusioned by his experiences. There he must confront a mystery: why Jessie Proctor, a housekeeper on the station, took her life days before his return. He finds her diaries, reads them, and gradually discovers her secret sadness.