The Mill Mystery [Hardcover]

Anna Katherine Green (Author), 1stWorld Library (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2007

I had just come in from the street. I had a letter in my hand. It was for my fellow-lodger, a young girl who taught in the High School, and whom I had persuaded to share my room because of her pretty face and quiet ways. She was not at home, and I flung the letter down on the table, where it fell, address downwards. I thought no more of it; my mind was too full, my heart too heavy with my own trouble. Going to the window, I leaned my cheek against the pane. Oh, the deep sadness of a solitary woman's life! The sense of helplessness that comes upon her when every effort made, every possibility sounded, she realizes that the world has no place for her, and that she must either stoop to ask the assistance of friends or starve!

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: 1st World Library - Literary Society (June 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1421841266
• ISBN-13: 978-1421841267
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

Customer Reviews

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21 of 21 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.