The Red House Mystery [Hardcover]

A. A. Milne (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2002

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER HI TWO MEN AND A BODY AYLEY looked round suddenly at the voice. "Can I help?" said Antony politely. "Something's happened," said Cayley. He was breathing quickly. "I heard a shot—it sounded like a shot—I was in the library. A loud bang—I didn't know what it was. And the door's locked." He rattled the handle again, and shook it. "Open the door!" he cried. "I say, Mark, what is it? Open the door!" "But he must have locked the door on purpose," said Antony. "So why should he open it just because you ask him to ?" Cayley looked at him in a bewildered way. Then he turned to the door again. "We must break it in," he said, putting his shoulder to it . "Help me." "Isn't there a window?" Caylfty turned to him stupidly. "Window ? Window ?" "So much easier to break in a window," said Antony with a smile. He looked very cool and collected, as he stood just inside the hall, leaning onhis stick, and thinking, no doubt, that a great deal of fuss was being made about nothing. But then, he had not heard the shot. "Window—of course! What an idiot I am." He pushed past Antony, and began running out into the drive. Antony followed him. They ran along the front of the house, down a path to the left, and then to the left again over the grass, Cayley in front, the other close behind him. Suddenly Cayley looked over his shoulder and pulled up short. "Here," he said. They had come to the windows of the locked room, French windows which opened on to the lawns at the back of the house. But now they were closed. Antony couldn't help feeling a thrill of excitement as he followed Cayley's example, and put his face close up to the glass. For the first time he wondered if there really had been a revolver shot in this mysterious room. It had all seemed so absurd and...

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Though Milne is immediately associated with Winnie-the-Pooh and pals, he nonetheless wrote a number of adult titles, including this 1922 novel in which guests at a country estate become amateur sleuths when a shooting occurs and all evidence points toward their host. This edition contains a new introduction by scholar Douglas Greene.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

''This droll whodunit from the creator of Winnie the Pooh sparkles with witty dialogue, deft plotting, and an amusing cast. In between taking tea and playing billiards, an amateur detective and his chum investigate their genial host's disappearance. A series of lighthearted capers ensues, replete with secret passageways, underwater evidence, and other atmospheric devices.'' --Goodreads.com

''Though Milne is immediately associated with Winnie-the-Pooh and pals, he nonetheless wrote a number of adult titles, including this 1922 novel in which guests at a country estate become amateur sleuths when a shooting occurs and all evidence points toward their host.'' --Library Journal --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: IndyPublish.com (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1404328440
• ISBN-13: 978-1404328440
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,192,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alan Alexander Milne was born in London on January 18, 1882, the third and youngest son of a schoolmaster. At age eleven, he won a scholarship to the Westminster School. He went on to attend Cambridge University and became the editor of the undergraduate paper, Granta. After graduating from Cambridge in 1903, Milne moved back to London with enough savings to live for one year. He was determined to become a writer. By 1906, he had been offered the position of Assistant Editor at Punch, a classic British humor magazine. He remained at Punch for the next eight years.
In 1913, Milne married Dorothy de Selincourt (known as Daphne) and moved to a house in London's Chelsea section. When World War I broke out, he enlisted in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, eventually serving in France. During his training period, he wrote his first play, Wurzel-Flummery, which was produced in London in 1917.

By 1919, having completed one book and several plays, Milne finally achieved financial independence. His play, Mr. Pim Passes By, previously staged in London, was produced by the Theatre Guild in New York City. It was as great a success there as it had been on the London stage. Milne was now well established as a witty and fashionable London playwright. In 1920, Christopher Robin Milne was born, an event that was to change the history of children's literature. In 1923, during a rainy holiday in Wales, Milne began work on a collection of verses for children. The result was When We Were Very Young, published in 1924.

Demand for Milne's whimsical work was overwhelming, and in 1926, he duplicated his earlier success with the publication of Winnie-the-Pooh. The sequel, The House at Pooh Corner, followed in 1927. Now We Are Six, another charming collection of verse, followed one year later. It was through these four books, all illustrated by the wonderfully talented Ernest H. Shepard, that Milne acquired a vast audience outside of the theater. In the years since their initial publication, interest in these books has grown and grown.

Milne continued to be a prolific essayist, novelist, and poet until his death in 1956.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

90 of 93 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic of the genre, June 17, 2010

By 

T. Simons (Columbia, SC United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Red House Mystery (Kindle Edition)

This is probably one of the top classics of "golden age" detective fiction. Anyone who's read any mystery novels at all will be familiar with the tropes -- an English country house in the first half of the twentieth century, a locked room, a dead body, an amateur sleuth, a helpful sidekick, and all the rest.

It's a clever story, ingenious enough in its way, and an iconic example of Agatha Christie / Dorothy Sayers -type murder mysteries. If you've read more than a few of those kinds of books, you might find this one a little predictable, but it's fun despite that.

It's particularly of note, however, because Raymond Chandler wrote about it extensively in his essay "The Simple Art of Murder." After praising it as "an agreeable book, light, amusing in the Punch style, written with a deceptive smoothness that is not as easy as it looks," he proceeds to take it sharply to task for its essential lack of realism. This book -- which Chandler admired to an extent -- was what he saw as the iconic example of what was wrong with the detective fiction of his day, and to which novels like "The Big Sleep" or "The Long Goodbye", with their hard-boiled, hard-hitting gumshoes and gritty realism, were a direct response.

So this book's worth reading not just because it's "an agreeable book, light, [and] amusing in the Punch style", but also because reading it will give a deepened appreciation for the later, more realistic detective fiction of writers like Hammett and Chandler.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Murderously Fun, December 21, 2000

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M (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red House Mystery (Dover Mystery Classics) (Paperback)

This was the most fun I've had reading a mystery since I read the Hardy Boys as a kid. It seems you should be reading it under the covers with a flashlight. In The Red House Mystery, A.A. Milne (of Pooh fame) lets us pal around with Tony Gillingham, a jack-of-all-trades who is trying his hand a being a detective. The setting is an English country house loaded with guests, including the British major, the willful actress, and the dim-but-lovable young athlete. These are stock characters; Tony and his friend Bill even gleefully refer to each other as "Holmes" and "Watson". It's all very playful, despite the corpse. So much so that Tony and Bill are guilty about how much fun they are having.

There are tons of mentions of amateur theatricals and acting. Tony is playing at being a detective and so is the reader, which draws you into the story alongside him. In a way you are competing with Tony and Bill to solve the crime. It's a fair contest: only amateurs allowed. Milne gives you all the clues, even to the point of saying things like "This would be important later." In the reader's head a siren goes off and a sign lights up saying "CLUE". Tony and Bill bounce theories off each other and the theories change as the clues mount up. Still, Tony is always ahead of Bill (and probably the reader). He knows the real question in a mystery is not "How?" but "Why?"

The best parts are the gasps of surprise and moments of anticipation while we wait in darkness for the sounds of approaching footsteps. Milne has a great way of setting the mood, whether it's nervous tension or eager curiosity. A fun mystery is like opening up a big present: You can't wait to know what it is. Milne conveys this sense of "I need to know" in this his one-and-only mystery novel. If you're like me, you'll need to know and keep saying to yourself, "One more chapter and I'll put out the light."

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Entertaining Read, August 7, 2000

By 

Steven A. Bell "Even Keel" (Kemp, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Red House Mystery (Dover Mystery Classics) (Paperback)

This is Milne's only foray into writing an adult-level book (unfortunately), having written it for the sake of his father (a consummate lover of mysteries). A country side mansion is a common gathering point for several of the upper crust of British society. One of the guests invites a friend of his over to meet the host. As the friend arrives the host suddenly dies behind a locked door. Foul play is immediately suspected, but the police are stumped. Somewhat formulaic, this mystery had a couple of unexpected twists and turns which kept me guessing, until near the end, what had happened to the host (yes, even the manner of his death is mysterious). I was pleasantly suprised when I realized that all of the data to solve the mystery had been there all along, but I had missed it! This smacked a little of Christie and Holmes wrapped together (perhaps an unfair comparison, but I did enjoy this book). Well worth the purchase price. 156pp. I wish there had been more books like this from the author. A shame.