The Mill Mystery [Paperback]

Anna Katharine Green (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2004

I was not as unsuccessful in this attempt as one might anticipate. The lady of the house was a gossip, and the subject of Mr. Barrows' death was an inexhaustible topic of interest to her. I had but to mention his name, and straightway a tide of words flowed from her lips, which, if mostly words, contained here and there intimations of certain facts which I felt it was well enough for me to know, even if they did not amount to any thing like an explanation of the tragedy. Among these was one which only my fear of showing myself too much interested in her theme prevented me from probing to the bottom.

Product Details

• Paperback: 196 pages
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing (June 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1419172824
• ISBN-13: 978-1419172823
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,670,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of sudden deaths & dark doings, June 22, 2010

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Patto (Vermont) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Mill Mystery (Paperback)

Anna Katherine Green (1846-1935) was known for her complex plots, and the plot is the best thing about this book. There's no real development of several of the main characters. They just plunge into their adventures with glittering eyes and pounding hearts.

Initially the mystery revolves around the death of a beloved young minister, Mr. Barrows, who's found drowned in the vat of an old abandoned mill. In a modern thriller, forensics would quickly determined if it was suicide or murder. But no such luck in 1886, when this book was published. A beautiful young woman called Constance has to figure it out.

Constance is constant to a promise she made to her roommate Ada Reynolds, the fiancée of Mr. Barrows. Ada does not accept the idea of suicide and wants Constance to clear her lover's name of this awful suspicion. Ada drops dead of heart failure just after Mr. Barrows' death. Sudden deaths are rife in this novel.

Constance finds a sinister connection between the clergyman and the rich and locally prominent Pollard family. In the earliest stages of her contact with them, she's drawn to the oldest son of the family - a somewhat unconvincing case of love at first sight. This naturally complicates her investigation, which will be full of shocking discoveries.

Green at her best is a melodramatic but ingenious weaver of mysteries. She helped shape the genre of detective fiction, and her influence lives on in Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes. This is not her best effort, however. I'd recommend instead The Leavenworth Case, her greatest mystery. Another good one is The House of the Whispering Pines. But if you're reading all her works, as I am, The Mill Mystery will be of interest.