The Red House mystery

156 pages

English language

Published Feb. 1, 1998 by Dover Publications.

ISBN:
978-0-486-40129-4
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OCLC Number:
37890344

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4 stars (3 reviews)

This is probably one of the top classics of "golden age" detective fiction. Anyone who's read any mystery novels at all will be familiar with the tropes -- an English country house in the first half of the twentieth century, a locked room, a dead body, an amateur sleuth, a helpful sidekick, and all the rest.

It's a clever story, ingenious enough in its way, and an iconic example of Agatha Christie / Dorothy Sayers -type murder mysteries. If you've read more than a few of those kinds of books, you might find this one a little predictable, but it's fun despite that.

It's particularly of note, however, because Raymond Chandler wrote about it extensively in his essay "The Simple Art of Murder." After praising it as "an agreeable book, light, amusing in the Punch style, written with a deceptive smoothness that is not as easy as it looks," he …

37 editions

Review of 'The Red House mystery' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

This is an amusing, some-what genre-mocking little Country House murder-mystery - but still intriguing enough to keep the pages turning. I managed to partially guess what was going on but not enough of it to spoil the story; there's nothing worse than figuring out the mystery ahead of its revelation by the amateur sleuth.

It's interesting to note that this type of story appeared to be something of a cliche to its author all the way back in 1922, hence the slightly mocking tone. How much time was there between the inception of the detective story (by Poe) and it becoming somewhat old hat? Less than 80 years apparently.