Customer Reviews

The Circular Staircase (Dover Mystery Classics)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1957) was never a critic's darling and both her short stories and novels were repeatedly dismissed as "low brow junk"--but the reading public of the early 1900s adored her, and she had a very long and commercially profitable career. And although most of her work could be best described as "romance," it is for her occasional mystery that she is best recalled today.

Written in 1907 and published in 1908, THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE was among Rinehart's most popular works. Wealthy spinster Miss Innes is persuaded by her two wards--niece and nephew Gertrude and Halsey--to take a house in the country for the summer. But no sooner is Miss Innes and her fearful maid Liddy installed at Sunnyside then things begin to go bump in night, and murder is not far behind.

THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE is very much of its era: like many novels of the time it has a Victorian hang-over that shows in both its highly improbable plot and its determination to spell out every possible detail. Not a great stylist, Rinehart was never really able to shed these issues in any of her works--but if you are prepared to suspend disbelief and enter into the spirit of the thing THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE is actually quite a bit of fun. There are sounds in the night, mysterious faces at the window, screaming maids, unexpected visitors, and all the rest. And the book would become extremely influential in an unexpected way.

In 1917 Rinehart joined forces with playwright Avery Hopwood to adapt THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE to the stage, and when it opened on Broadway in 1920 as THE BAT it proved one of the decade's most durable shows, a mixture of mystery and comic cliche. The result was a wave of similar novels, plays, and films that not only cast a long shadow but which are still very much with us today. So wait until a dark and stormy night, pour yourself a cup of warm milk, and read THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE by flickering candlelight... and if you hear a noise in the furthermost part of the house, just tell yourself it's only Miss Innes making one of her ill-advised nocturnal investigations!

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

For decades Mary Roberts Rinehart was the queen of mystery thrillers -- the American Agatha Christie. The Circular Staircase was Rinehart's first published novel (The Swimming Pool was her last), but it is a well-constructed work in ever way. Rinehart's special gift was in the evocation of an overlying and unremitting atmosphere of unease and potential danger and it is under such an atmosphere of apprehension that she spins her stories. For some time it has been fashionable to dismiss the novels of Mary Roberts Rinehart as old fashioned. This may apply to superficial details -- such as gas lighting -- but it definitely is not true of the novels themselves which are timeless in their ability to hold the reader in a grip of mystery and suspense. The Circular Stasircase is one of the finest mystery novels ever written.

This is an enjoyable mystery in the classic mode with some deft turns. But it is completely unedited and riddled throughout with type-os and silly mistakes. Surely no person at the publishing house read this book before it was released; I'd go so far as to say no one bothered to use spell-check to detect ludicrous errors. In most cases, the correct spelling or usage is fairly easy to figure. In one, a "Mrs." should have been a "Mr." and that caused a bit of confusion. Readers appreciate these budget-priced editions, but couldn't someone at the publishing house give them a look after they've been scanned into the computer? Surely a summer intern in the editorial department might even have a good time reading this pleasant little mystery.

Two hallmarks of the typical Mary Roberts Rinehart (The American Agatha Christie) mystery include both a rich, aristocratic lady (usually single), and a large, spooky house -- this one features both. "The Circular Staircase" is one of Rinehart's better works, rating just slightly below "The Yellow Room" and "The Red Lamp," in my opinion (I've read all her works). Here's THE STORY:

A noble and older lady, Miss Innes, rents a remote and huge New England home for the summer from a local banker who has gone to California for his health. Miss Innes brings along her niece and her nephew (both of whom she has raised from childhood), and both of whom are in their early 20s. It's not long before the banker's son, a local rapscallion and ne'er-do-well, is mysteriously murdered at the base of The Circular Staircase. What was he doing slinking around in the house late at night? No one seems to know.

However, the nephew and his good friend (a clerk at the homeowner's bank) both soon come under suspicion of having murdered the young man. In fact, the nephew suddenly and mysteriously disappears after he is involved in a significant late-night auto crash.

If this all this were not enough trouble for Miss Innes, she soon discovers that her nephew's friend (the bank clerk) may have been responsible for an embezzlement which caused the bank to go belly-up, and this additionally manifests the total loss of the two siblings' huge trust fund... and her niece has fallen madly in love with this apparent thief and scoundrel!

The house itself continues to generate a notable source of terror for Miss Innes along with her aged maid who is also her skittish companion. There are lots of bumps, screams, phantom-like apparitions, and nefarious other strange happenings as the long and eventful nights pass by. All this chaos causes the domestic help to leave as fast as Miss Innes can hire them. The local police detective seems befuddled by the overwhelming mess but Miss Innes resolves to stay in the house and to solve the mystery(s).

There are plenty more spooky and strange happenings including a big fire, a furtive-acting doctor, the necessity to exhume a grave in the middle of the night, a pock-marked "veiled lady"... the list is almost endless. In other words, the plot is complex and the sub-plots are several.

The chronological setting for "The Circular Staircase" is the Turn of the Century (from the 19th to the 20th). The book was first published in 1908, sold over a million copies, and was the premiere literary work that launched Rinehart into national fame as an author.

"The Circular Staircase" has pretty much all that any mystery could offer to a reader, including the kitchen sink. Rinehart worked in just about every possible nefarious archetype and furtive activity that we ever see in the typical cozy murder. This one is like "The Hardy Boys" for adults and it gets my highest recommendation.

A few years ago, in my quest to meet all the mystery writers that have influenced the genre, I discovered Mary Roberts Rinehart. Her books may fall into the gothic romance category, but I love them for another reason. She spins a good mystery story, a "cozy" that lets us have a relaxing read without getting too graphic. But what I really enjoy is experiencing the modes/attitudes of the times she wrote about. Reading her books is like stepping into history, the day-to-day life of the wealthy and poor, and their concerns, big and small. Some of this lifestyle seems crazy to us now. At the same time, some of it is the same, merely in another form. If you follow her books, she tells a tale of how things did change for the elitist class, with characters and style along the lines of Mary Higgins Clark. The Circular Staircase was written in 1907. In many ways, it shows that people haven't changed that much at all in 99 years. It's not a serious read, but it's one that will engage you in the past and keep you up late, with a bowl of popcorn, to see what happens. If you're a Clark fan, you'll love this book, and be checking out the other Rinehart novels.

A wonderful classic mystry, involving bloodless murders without murderer's intention. In detail nicely described complicated situations with a pinch of humor. Very well connected story dots. After reading it over 20 times, I still enjoy it. I wish they had or (will) make a movie on it.

Wealthy family goes to the country for a rest and gets more than it bargained for - and it doesn't include much rest! The narrator is a tart-tongued lady, the mystery is complicated, and the view of life for the well-off in the early 1900's gives a whole other dimension to this book. Very enjoyable reading.

Although her name may not resonate with the public today as much as it did a century ago, Mary Roberts Rinehart has most certainly left her mark on modern-day fiction. The originator of the so-called "Had I But Known" school of detective writing, Rinehart was, for many years, the most highly paid and popular female novelist in America. Her second novel (but first to be published), "The Circular Staircase," which was released in 1908, when Mary was 32, featured a relatively new kind of crime solver, a no-nonsense spinster in long skirts and with an abiding curiosity; though certainly not the first lady detective, the character, Rachel Innes, certainly helped pave the way for many others (the website Wikipedia currently has a list of almost 400 fictional female sleuths!). "The Circular Staircase" has been turned into a film on three occasions, and in 1920 was transformed into a play, written by Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, called "The Bat"; Batman creator Bob Kane has admitted that the Bat character was an inspiration for him. Want more? Roberts' 1930 novel "The Door" is thought to be the source for "the butler doing it." (Perhaps I should add here that the classic 1946 film "The Spiral Staircase" is in no way related to Rinehart's book, but was rather based on Ethel Lina White's 1933 novel "Some Must Watch.") Despite these influences and past fame, however, Rinehart was an unknown quantity to this reader, until I happened to read a very laudatory article on "The Circular Staircase" in the overview volume "Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books," in which author H.R.F. Keating sings its praises. Fortunately, Rinehart's classic (in addition to the author's first novel, 1906's "The Man In Lower Ten") is in print today to entertain still another generation of readers.

In the book, we make the acquaintance of Ms. Innes, who rents a summer mansion in the country with her grown niece and nephew. Strange things immediately start to transpire in the house: noises in the night, eerie faces at the window, a murdered man found at the foot of the titular staircase, the nephew's disappearance, holes bored in the walls, a conflagration in the stables, a man scared to death by a possible ghost, and on and on. Throughout these increasingly bizarre happenings, Rachel manages to keep her cool, only "losing it" when her nephew is abducted, she must witness a disinterment at the local cemetery, and when she is locked in a secret room in the house with the culprit responsible for MUCH of the mishegas...though not all; Rinehart's plot is way too complex to allow for a single, simple solution like that! In retrospect, to the author's credit, this labyrinthine story line, with its large number of characters, culprits and motivations, does indeed hang together and make perfect sense, although trying to recall who knew what and when may induce a major-league migraine. As one of the professional detectives in the book, Jamieson, puts it at one point, "It's a hash, that's what it is." But Rinehart manages to keep control of her story fairly well...though not perfectly. At one point in the book, 48 hours are said to have elapsed between the staircase murder and Rachel's nephew's return to the house, whereas a careful reading reveals that only 24 hours have elapsed. Too, in one section of the book, the house's laundress, Mary Ann, packs up her bags and leaves in fright, yet is somehow listed as still working in the house five chapters later! Still, these are quibbles. "The Circular Staircase" is a wonderful story, well told by Rachel, our narrator. It is suspenseful, at times exciting, and builds to a tremendous windup in that secret room. And Rachel's acerbic relationship with her constantly flustered housekeeper, Liddy, by the way, is consistently amusing. Oh...as far as guessing the answers to the book's many riddles, my suggestion would be to not even try. This is not the type of mystery that sets out all the clues needed for a reader to solve the puzzle. Just sit back and enjoy the vintage ride, much like Rachel does in her 1908 Dragon Fly....

This is Mary Roberts Rinehart at her best. The author tells a haunting tale which is on a par with The Yellow Room. Rinehart is a master at setting the stage and draws the reader in with her unique stlye of mystery writting. She expertly developes the plot and her character descriptions are flawless. A real page turner and a great read.

This was a great book. Wish we had more like it. I rate this as a 5 star book and also give a five star rating to the person I bought it from. I received this book and it was in great condition.