Customer Reviews

The After House

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was the first book I ever read by Ms. Rinehart and it was a thrilling surprise. It would make an excellent film. The novel takes place on a ship where an axe murderer is on the loose and it has remnants of Agatha Christie's "And Then There Was None" It's a quick, exciting read and I highly recommend it.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the fast pace and chilling story, I was struck by how this book completely disregards the most fundamental rule in mystery stories: giving readers enough clues (no matter how twisted or incidental) to actually solve the crime on their own. I can't say more without spoiling the end of the novel, but I think this book would have made for a more satisfying read had the author played a little more fairly with her audience. As it is, I would highly recommend this book as a good horror novel, but not as a mystery.

This book, written in 1914, is great fun to read. The plot is relatively simple and the number of suspects limited. What adds to the fun are the mores of the early 20th century and how they differ from our own.

This is a great fast read. A slew of murders take place upon a yacht - who is the murderer? Will the crew and passengers make it to shore alive?

As with other free eBooks in this series there are typos (misspellings and missing punctuation), and diagrams are missing. The author's descriptions of the layout of the yacht are thorough enough, however, that with a close read the diagrams are not strictly necessary.

I agree with another reviewer that this author does not give the reader enough clues to solve the mystery on their own, but this is still a very entertaining read. It had me up past my bedtime, wanting more.

This WAS a really good variation on the "locked room mystery." What more isolated place than on the open sea? Incidentally, today this type of mystery is becoming almost impossible to write because of technology, i.e. cell phones, etc.

For me, this story was much deeper than just the murders. One entire level was the constant terror everyone must have felt during every waking moment, the uncertainty of whether the person in front of them at that moment was the killer.

I do agree with another reviewer that there were absolutely no clues to the identity of the killer although there were plenty of red herrings. However, as a replier said, maybe Rinehart's goal was to simply showcase an injustice in real life. A very good read.

The book is well paced at first and by half of it it starts to bore you. You'll never have a clue or even an inkling of which one is the bad guy. The plot goes in and out of psychotic thinking that will digress you off the main story so... if you read it don't expect a great thriller or a good love story. There's none of that in this book.

I listened to this book on CD . I fully enjoyed it. It was suspenseful, and although fairly short the main characters were well enough defined. The reader had great inflections in her voice. I agree with others that there was no way to really figure it out given the info available.

A must read. First book from this author that I have read, now I am looking for more titles from her.