Album/The

I have read The Album at least six times and it still gives me goosebumps. This book was Rinehart at her best. If you want a good read and a good scare, this is the book for you but don;t read it alone at night. Trust me.

I have read The Album at least six times and it never ceases to scare the daylights out of me. It is by far the best mystery I have ever read. Mrs. Reinhart was the master of the "if only I had known" school of writing. If you haven't read this book, you should hunt until you find it. You won't be sorry.

I've read all of Mary Roberts Rinehart's mysteries I could get my hands on (many are out of print). She's a good cross between the golden age mystery writers who could write, (Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh) and those who could plot, (Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr). Of the Rineharts I could find, The Album is my favorite. The setting is upper crusty, the delicate manners of the characters blow up fairly regularly, the murder is preposterously bloody and the romance that blooms in the middle of it all is so sweet you can almost smell the lavender rising from the page. It's a set piece from another age, which is the whole point, I guess. People have servants! People have so much money that nobody works! The chauffeur lives over the garage and wears green livery! We should all live like that, but the narrator gives it to you matter-of-factly, only going into the vapors over the murder mystery, which is a good one. If you read to escape, go here.