The Yellow Room

It`s the middle of World War II. The setting is the Spencer family`s sumptuous summer house in Maine. Young Carol Spencer has gone ahead of her family to open it up for the season, with a cook and two maids. But nobody meets them at the station. When they finally get to the house, the housekeeper is missing, nothing is ready, and the phones have been pulled out. On top of all this discomfiture, one of the maids finds a body in the linen closet! Two parallel searches for the murderer are soon underway. Floyd, the self-important village chief of police, would enjoy pinning the crime on a member of the wealthy Spencer family. But Jerry Dane, recovering from a war wound in the neighborhood, intends to look deeper. Dane is a mystery man - handsome but unsociable, watched over by a another wounded soldier. Dane is delighted to have a puzzle to unravel while he convalesces. But matters get complicated when he begins to fall in love with Carol Spencer. The convoluted plot is a feast of cover-ups, accidents and misdirected suspicions. Just about everyone seems to carry a gun, and the guns go off rather easily. Everyone smokes incessantly, too. The rapid-fire dialog has flashes of humor. I enjoyed the portrayal of upper-class civilian life during wartime: rich people suffering from the lack of servants, no porters at the train stations, grave shortages of gasoline and gardeners, complaints about rationing and thin cream. Mary Roberts Rinehart has been called the American Agatha Christie. I find her less polished than Christie, and her characters more on the surface. But there's a dashing American quality to her writing that has its own unique appeal. The Yellow Room makes me want to read more of Rinehart. I'd definitely recommend it.

That's what Agatha Christie had Hercule Poirot to state in one of her own great cozy murders, "The Clocks," (1963). I agree with Agatha, (and with Hercule). Mary Roberts Rinehart was known for her complex plots and surprise endings ("Had I but known!") and this one is no exception. I also especially enjoy her mysteries because she almost always shifts the focus of the plot on to some edifice, usually a semi-spooky summer home, as the scene of her various cozy murders. In this case, a young woman is murdered and found, partially burned, in the summer home of an aristocratic lady, (the latter being yet another chief feature of Rinehart's stories). At first, the prime suspect appears to be evident but as the story evolves, the reader sees that there are others who might want this mysterious lady out of the way. Mary Roberts Rinehart lived from August 12, 1876 to September 22, 1958. She wrote "The Circular Staircase" in 1907, a spectacular mystery which launched her to national fame. That work sold over a million copies and is still a good seller today. "The Red Lamp" (1925) is another of her more compelling mysteries. "The Yellow Room" was written in 1945 which conveniently allowed Rinehart to produce the most sympathetic of all prime suspects: a military flyer. This is one whodunnit which pretty much stumps even the most ardent of mystery readers in their efforts to anticipate the ending. It's my favorite of all time. Highly recommended.

Mary Roberts Rinehart wrote some terrific mysteries dating back to the early 1900's. The Yellow Room, originally published in 1945, is one of her best. It is old-fashioned in a good way. This is a classic and very entertaining example of the mystery genre. There is a pretty young girl, a murder, suspects and intrigue involving the young woman's family and, of course, a dashing war hero in love with the heroine and only too willing to use every means at his disposal to get her out of the jam and solve the mystery. Rinehart creates a fun and exciting atmosphere for mystery lovers to enjoy, as well as a pretty good brain teaser. Young Carol Spencer is a likable heroine trying to recover from the loss of her fiance in the South Pacific. She longs to keep busy and wants to make herself useful in the war effort. She has been forced to care for her mother, however, as her selfish sister Elinor is too busy in her society functions to help. When Carol leaves New York for Maine to open up their home there, she discovers many unsettling mysteries. Lucy, the maid, is mising, and it is discovered that she is in the hospital with an injured leg. Someone chased her in the night and she fell down the stairs. Someone has been staying in the yellow room, even though no one was living in the Spencer's Maine home. Worse, there is a very dead young woman in the closet. When it is discovered that she came there asking for Carol, she becomes a suspect in the eyes of the local police. Dane is the war hero staying next door while he recovers from a leg injury before going back to his men. His past is a bit of a mystery also, and his meddling in the case is unappreciated by the local police. Carol doesn't know who to trust, and when her brother, a war hero as well, arrives, the mystery becomes murkier. Her snotty sister's car was seen the night of the murder, even though she was supposedly in New York. Was Carol's brother involved somehow? Who has been stealing her mother's fine china from the house? What was the dead girl's relationship to her brother and sister? Dane uses every man and instinct at his disposal to root out the killer and get to the bottom of things. Shots in the night and the mysterious actions of someone unknown, yet moving easily among her Maine neighbors, spell danger for Carol. The mystery is old-fashioned and so is the romance. Dane loves Carol before there is even a kiss. He puts himself in harm's way even though his future is uncertain, not wanting to put Carol through a long wait, and perhaps break her heart once again. This is very much a mystery where you can sense WWII and the changes it made in young men. The mores of a bygone era are in the forefront in this enjoyable and atmospheric mystery from one of the greats in the genre. For those who enjoy their mysteries in this vein, The Yellow Room is a lot of fun.

All ingredients of a first class Mary R. Rinehart are displayed in the first pages of the Yellow Room. A huge house in the country, belonging to a wealthy family : the first daughter is a "jet-set" woman, far from ordinary human feelings ; the second daughter Carol, the heroine, is more engaging, unaffected, a lovely girl. It seems the boy she was engaged to was killed in the Pacific, but it's not so sure. Her brother is a WWII hero, but it appears there's something not so clear in his past. The corpse of an unknown young woman is found in the house, and we discover she's connected with the family. Incidents and accidents, attempts of murder and murder occur more and more often at night, and the police net closes on Carol. Well, of course, here comes a man, an ex soldier but not a super-hero, who'll help Carol and solve the mystery. The girl falls obviously for him, and all's well that end's well, but there's no preciousness in the story. The conclusion, as always, is unexpected and great. Old fashioned, yes, but to be read with great pleasure.

I personally love mysteries set in the `40s and earlier with a female heroine. This fits the bill! I love the details of the era and the writing style that comes along with writing in that time period.