Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.
The Great Mistake  By  cover art

The Great Mistake

By: Mary Roberts Rinehart
Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $21.49

Buy for $21.49

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

In an elaborate house known as the Cloisters, Maud Wainwright rules supreme. The queen of society in the small town of Beverly, she has a table long enough to seat 100, and she keeps an iron grip on the guest list. Her right-hand woman is Pat Abbott, a local girl who is beautiful, innocent, and kind. Pat has no idea how cutthroat high society can be, but she's about to get a deadly first lesson.

Pat has fallen head over heels in love with Maud's son, Tony, a clever young rake with a single flaw: his vicious, gold-digging wife. At the same time that she is dangerously infatuated with a married man, Pat's world is turned upside down by a series of attacks on the estate - and a truly shocking murder. To save Tony and Maud, Pat must find the killer. But the list of suspects is as long as one of Maud's guest lists: When a woman has room at her table for 100 friends, she'll have more than her share of enemies.

"Anyone who aspires to become a writer," said the New York Times, "could not do better than to study carefully the methods of Mary Roberts Rinehart." The Great Mistake is a classic example of the golden age murder mystery at its best.

©1940 Mary Roberts Rinehart; copyright 1968 by Alan G. Rinehart, Stanley M. Rinehart, Jr., and Frederick R. Rinehart (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

What listeners say about The Great Mistake

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The way the story was told

The jumping around but was still interesting enough to make me want to finish it and love the way Tony talks with his love

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent Entertainment

I'm a long-time fan or Rinehart, and to me, this is one of her best. It has a complicated plot, but all the pieces are available, and it makes sense in the end. The Great Mistake is well-written, slyly humorous, and nicely plotted, and her famous tongue-in-cheek "had I but known" foreshadowing is excellently done. This thoroughly enjoyable mystery would make a good introduction to Rinehart for those who enjoy the mysteries of the 1940s.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful