Customer Reviews

The Circular Staircase/The Man in Lower Ten: The Essential Rinehart Collection #1

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For decades Mary Roberts Rinehart was the queen of mystery thrillers -- the American Agatha Christie. These are the first two mystery novels she wrote and they are genuine classics. Although The Man in Lower Ten was written first, The Circular Staircase was Rinehart's first published novel (The Man in Lower Ten was published second and The Swimming Pool was her last mystery novel). Rinehart's special gift was in the evocation of an unremitting atmosphere of unease and potential danger and it is under such an atmosphere of apprehension that she spun her classic stories. The Man in Lower Ten -- in which a man is murdered in his berth in a railroad Pullman car -- was so scary and so popular that for some time after its publication travellers refused to sleep in any Pullman berth numbered lower 10. Unfortunately, for many years the classic mystery novels of Mary Roberts Rinehart were dismissed by many as old fashioned. This may apply to superficial details -- such as gas lighting and railroad Pullman cars -- 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 Staircase is one of the finest mystery novels ever written and The Man in Lower Ten is fitting companion in this first book of the new Essential Rinehart Collection. If you love good mystery/suspense novels please do yourself a favor and get to know the classics by this master of the genre.