Minsik
Discover
Aug 12, 1876 — Sep 22, 1958· 82 yrs

UNITED STATES AUTHOR · FICTION · DETECTIVE AND MYSTERY

Mary Roberts Rinehart

Also known as: MaryRoberts Rinehart, Mary Rinehart

52
BOOKS
3.8
AVG RATING (42)
5
READERS

Mary Roberts Rinehart (August 12, 1876 – September 22, 1958) was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie. Rinehart published her first mystery novel, The Circular Staircase, in 1908, which introduced the "had I but known" narrative style. Rinehart is also considered the earliest known source of the phrase "the butler did it", in her novel The Door (1930), although the exact phrase does not appear in her work and the plot device had been used prior to that time. She also worked to tell the stories and experiences of front line soldiers during World War I, one of the first women to travel to the Belgian front lines.

Pittsburgh, United States
Wikipedia

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.

— from The Circular Staircase, 1908

Most acclaimed

#2

A light in the window

5.0 (1)

INNOCENT LOVE Swept up in a whirlwind courtship and a hasty wedding to handsome Court Wayne, Ricky felt nothing could possibly go wrong for two people so much in love. But then Court was shipped off to fight the Germans, and the powerful Wayne family insisted she come to live with them... SINISTER PREY A small-town girl, Ricky did not feel at home in the Waynes' posh Fifth Avenue establishment, or at ease with Court's coldly sophisticated mother. She sensed with a chill of foreboding the contempt and bitter resentment that ran just beneath the polished surface of their lives. But she could not know the depths of their hatred, or the lengths to which they would go to break up her marriage - even if it meant destroying her in the process...

#1

The Circular Staircase

1908

4.5 (17)

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. For twenty years I had been perfectly comfortable; for twenty years I had had the window-boxes filled in the spring, the carpets lifted, the awnings put up and the furniture covered with brown linen; for as many summers I had said good-by to my friends, and, after watching their perspiring hegira, had settled down to a delicious quiet in town, where the mail comes three times a day, and the water supply does not depend on a tank on the roof.

#3

The Yellow Room

1945

5.0 (1)

George Shipway’s two novels, [The Imperial Governor](/works/OL5476132W) and [The Knight](/works/OL5476124W), introduced a first-rate historical novelist to readers in the United States. He was praised not only for his meticulous research, but also for his “lean hard” style (Gerald Meyer, is the Des Moines Register) and “fascinating insight into the timeless military mind” (Martin Blumenson, in the Washington, DC. Star). Now, Mr. Shipway turns again to that same “timeless military mind” in a modern—and frequently funny—suspense tale. THE YELLOW ROOM is the story of a handful of retired, pukka sahib British military men who pass their hours sipping sherry and grumbling in the Yellow Room of their club while, in the streets outside, riots, revolution, and conspiracy threaten to topple the country they love so well. What they do to ensure that there will, indeed, always be an England, and what is done to them is a highly satisfying novel, an entertainment where honor summons crime to her needs, and murder joins hands with patriotism, and all are celebrated in most unusual, shocking, and often amusing, ways.

Books

Newest First