The Dark River

"Janet and Murray Rossier have a very bitter fight one night in their big old house in Charleston, behind which flows the dark Ashley River. Janet retires upstairs and suddenly hears a scream. She finds her friend Marcella in supreme distress -- quite understandable in light of the discovery of Murray's corpse in the study. He had been shot with his own gun, at close, range, and the police are calling it suicide. But Janet knows better..." If you read mysteries from various eras this one will strike you as a mix of modern and old-fashioned styles. There's a feeling that nothing much would have happened if Janet had decided to move on (modern indifference), and yet once she comes back from her trip and starts investigating witnesses start dying like flies (classic murderer panics under pressure). There are hints of solid clues and piles of psychological clues. Most of the male characters seem to want to be romantically involved with the heroine, yet there is some understanding that she might want to go on with her life in some other way than by becoming a wife again. Janet and her husband had been arguing about business accounts. And so on. The mystery is plotted well enough to keep you guessing, although baiting the murderer into revealing him(her)self seems lame to me unless it is done really well. The book drew me back in for another reading after a long time on the shelves.