Showing results by author "Mary Roberts-Rinehart" in All Categories

The Birches was one of the grand mansions of the 1920s, with a ballroom, tennis courts, and, of course, a swimming pool. But after the crash of '29, when Lois and Judith's father killed himself to escape his debts, the family turned the summer home into a fulltime retreat from the world. Decades later, Judith is the queen of New York society, a fast-living beauty whose nerves are beginning to fray, while Lois still lives in the dilapidated old mansion, writing mystery novels to pay the bills. She is about to encounter a mystery of her own.

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.

“This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous.” So begins The Circular Staircase, a book which has been hailed as the best novel by the most important American woman mystery writer of our time.

As far as Carol Spencer is concerned, the war has spoiled everything. She and Don had been engaged for years and were on the verge of marriage when he was shot down in the South Pacific, leaving Carol on the verge of spinsterhood at 24. She wants to take some kind of job in the war effort, but her invalid mother demands that Carol accompany her to the family's summer home in Maine. But when they arrive at the faded mansion, they find it completely locked up. The servants are gone, the lights are dark - and there is a body in the closet.

The house called Sunset has been Marcia's summer home for her entire life. Both of her parents died there, and she and her brother spent their youth exploring its rambling hallways and seaside grounds. They love the old house, but Marcia's sister-in-law has never taken to it. Juliette loathes the sea, and soon comes to loathe her husband as well. After they divorce, Juliette pays a final visit to Sunset, demanding alimony. She is there for a few tense days before she disappears. It takes them a week to find her body.

Elizabeth Bell runs a quiet household, with no family and no more than the usual number of servants. She passes her time thinking about crime and working on her biography of a relative. When a young cousin comes to stay, life in the house becomes uncharacteristically lively. First, cousin Judy burns a hole in Miss Bell's desk. Next, they spy a burglar on the staircase - a shadowy figure who vanishes without a trace. And finally, Sarah, the nurse, takes the dogs for a walk and never returns.

Crescent Place was once a peaceful country green surrounded by five tasteful suburban houses and populated by polite, responsible citizens. But as the city enveloped it, the residents built a gate to keep the world out. With each passing year, the subdivision grew stranger and stranger - until it began to look like a time capsule of the 1890s.

Miss Cornelia Van Gorder has left her New York City home for a vacation in an isolated country mansion with her beautiful young niece, neurotic maid, pompous butler and a mysterious but genteel young man, only to find herself the victim of a elusive master criminal, the Bat.

Rachel Innes, a middle-aged spinster, has barely settled in at the country house she has rented for the summer when a series of bizarre and violent events threaten to perturb her normally unflappable nature. A strange figure appears briefly in the twilight outside a window. At night, a rattling, metallic sound reverberates through dark halls, and - most disconcerting of all - the body of a strange man is found lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of a circular staircase.

Lawrence Blakely, attorney-at-law, sets off by train to deliver valuable documents in a criminal case. Along the way he encounters romance, treachery, a murder in which he is implicated and, finally, a train wreck.

New York socialite Kit McNair decides to host an impromptu dinner party at the home of her friend, Jimmy Wilson, to cheer him up following his divorce. What could possibly go wrong?

Rinehart's The Man in Lower Ten, the first American detective novel to make the best seller list, follows the investigation of the murder of a man in a sleeping car on a train. In this fast-paced thriller, the investigating detective builds up a network of clues that absolutely incriminate three entirely different people---only one of whom can be guilty.

Driven by a sense of duty and fear of monotony, Sara Lee leaves her comfortable life and fiance in Philadelphia to serve the Red Cross in Belgium during WWI. The spirited heroine finds a niche for herself helping the wounded soldiers. She meets a mysterious gentleman and falls into a haunting romance.

Hilda Adams' life as a nurse has become a bit dull. As she approaches 30, she sees long, monotonous years of trained obedience to orders ahead of her. But a rascally patient, a police detective, sees in her the intelligence and discretion of a born criminal investigator. People confide in a private nurse; she could unearth clues that can crack a case. Her first case is the disappearance of Clare March, a wealthy debutante who has been missing without a trace for a month.

The Circular Staircase was first serialized in 1907 and was then published in book form in 1908. It was wildly popular and established Rinehart as an important and influential American mystery author. Indeed, she became known as the American Agatha Christie.

The intrepid private nurse/investigator is charged with the care of two young boys in a home full of conundrums. Both parents are fearful but refuse to leave their home and won't say why. The rugs have been rolled up and the furniture piled into the middle of each room. Their anxiety is catching, as Miss Adams too furtively watches for danger as she searches for clues. Why, she wonders, do they lock every door in the house? And who or what is the menace that terrifies them?

A young lawyer survives a ghastly train wreck only to be accused of murdering a man who accidentally fell asleep in the wrong berth! This is another whirlwind of a whodunit by the author of The Circular Staircase.

Rachel Innes rents a summer house that is full of hidden rooms and sinister happenings. Chilling horror, romance, and rollicking humor permeate this suspenseful mystery novel.

Where There’s a Will is Mary Roberts Rinehart’s hilarious comedy involving a health spa, an heir, a would-be princess, and an impostor. The story is told by Minnie, who has essentially run the spa for years and inherited the care of its famous spring from her father. When the old doctor dies and leaves the Hope Springs Spa to his near-do-well grandson with the stipulation that he live on premises for two months in order to inherit, the grandson is nowhere to be found. So Minnie tries to save the spa by enlisting the help of family and friends to trick the lawyer....

"The Window at the White Cat" (1910) is a detective novel by Mary Roberts Rinehart. Excerpt from the book: "In my criminal work anything that wears skirts is a lady, until the law proves her otherwise. From the frayed and slovenly petticoats of the woman who owns a poultry stand in the market and who has grown wealthy by selling chickens at twelve ounces to the pound, or the silk sweep of Mamie Tracy, whose diamonds have been stolen down on the avenue - all the wearers are ladies, and as such announced by Hawes. In fact, he carries it to excess.