The Dawn of Reckoning is a novel by James Hilton. Hilton was an English novelist and screenplay writer, here exploring a story of marriage and jealousy. Excerpt: "The Monsells lived in the Essex market-town of Chassingford, and had the reputation of being "peculiar." Mr. Monsell, a high Foreign Office official, had died when Philip was quite young, and his wife's managerial efficiency had made a fairish private income into a rather good one. Philip had grown up amidst surroundings which only his mother's shrewdness had prevented from being luxurious."