Customer Reviews

That Affair Next Door

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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Returning from a trip abroad, the Van Burnam family enters their New York mansion to find a dead woman on the dining room floor. A curio cabinet has fallen on top of her, crushing her face, and law officers suspect that the victim is the wife of one of the Van Burnam sons. However, the son insists that he does not recognize the victim. How did this woman get into this locked house? Whose are those strange garments she is wearing? What is her hat doing in the closet and a strange, gaudy hat crushed underneath her? Why did the coroner insist that the woman was dead when the curio fell?

The story itself was another fascinating study in human motivations intertwined with bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence that at first make very little sense. True to Green's style, she calls up and explains each motivation, each piece of evidence with mathematical precision until the mystery unravels, and the perpetrator is punished in a most fitting fashion.

In That Affair Next Door, Mr. Gryce owes much of his success to the main witness, a woman named Miss Amelia Butterworth, who lives next door to the crime scene. Having read about Green's life and political views at the University of Texas Tarlton Law Library's "Law in Popular Culture" site, I suspect that Miss Butterworth may have been Green's alter ego. The story itself is written in first person with Miss Butterworth narrating.

The first thing that struck me regarding the protagonist, Miss Butterworth, was the remarkable contrast between her and the victimized main witness in The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow. Miss Butterworth, a fifty-ish spinster, is well able to take care of herself and has no qualms about helping Mr. Gryce and even conducting some investigation on her own. Any attempt to victimize or take advantage of this woman would have been discovered in a trice and rebuffed with a flourish.

Notwithstanding Miss Butterworth's self-reliance, Green's prose offers a window into class and gender roles as they stood in the late nineteenth century. Her vivid descriptions of socially acceptable and unacceptable behavior picture clearly how much society has changed over the past century. One can only speculate regarding what attitudes the author intended to express. Looking into her own life, we see a woman who was successful professionally (she always earned more than her husband), but not inclined to support women's causes, such as suffrage. The fact that she was able to overcome any barriers to her professional success may have been part of her reason for finding women's causes unnecessary. As a woman who advised Conan Doyle in his early career and partnered with her husband in designing award-winning furniture she certainly served as the epitome of female success, well able to overcome any obstacles society may have established.

This is one of Anna Katharine Green's most accomplished mysteries. It offers the reader a bizarre murder with the sly, seventy-seven-year-old Inspector Gryce on the case; an inquest rich in shocking revelations; more than one broken heart; and best of all, Miss Amelia Butterworth.

Miss Butterworth belongs to the inner circle of New York society in 1895. Over fifty and free of "the doubtful blessing of a husband," she is orderly, logical, unsentimental and a lady with impeccable taste. Her exclusive address at Gramercy Park puts her right next door to a shocking murder.

As we might expect, Miss Butterworth enjoys looking out her windows. One night around midnight she sees a man and woman enter the Van Burnam mansion, which is supposed to be empty. The man leaves soon after, but the woman does not. On the following day, Miss Butterworth persuades a policeman to enter the quiet house to see if anything's amiss. They find the body of a woman crushed to death under a cabinet in the parlor.

This is just the beginning of a complex investigation full of wrong turns and faulty conclusions. The clues are particularly delightful - a pincushion out of place, lost keys, lost rings, too many women's hats etc. Early on, Miss Butterworth feels that her worth has not been appreciated by the police. So she undertakes her own investigation - and has the time of her life doing it.

Despite a few erroneous notions, Miss Butterworth emerges as a truly amazing detective - and wins Gryce's admiration. She's charmer, a crusty old maid with a well-concealed soft heart - and quite a slippery interrogator. Agatha Christie's Miss Marple was inspired by the delightful Miss Butterworth.

Green was famous for her intricate plots, and That Affair Next Door is a first-rate example of her skill.

This book was a lot of fun to read. The author's wrting style sucked me in right from the start. It was hard for me to believe it was written so long ago. I was kept guessing whodunnit until near the end. The main character Miss Araminta Butterworth who preferred to be called Amelia was a real character and had a pretty good opinion of herself and her detecting skills. The conclusions she drew were usually wrong but she succeeded in picking up on several clues that the police overlooked. Ultimately her investigation led to the unveiling of the guity person.

As other reviews have pointed out, a remarkably nosy older woman, notices late night visitors to the empty mansion, next door to her own respectable home, in a posh neighborhood of NYC. It turns out there has been a murder. She determines that she has an obligation to aid the police in solving the crime. This is her story as told by her:

As to the robot reading, it comes through quite well on this book, aside from the usual problems of words with multiple meanings, and, the inexplicable failure to correct pronunciation of titles, but rather spell them out ("M R S", "M, R","D, R" etc.)

Green does a good job of delineating the self-justifying egregious invasion of privacy and other civil rights by the heroine, while at the same time, through adept handling of the first person narrative, adding a humorous subtext of derision for these characteristics. To what extent, in our current society, we should continue to forgive in fiction what we so vigorously disdain in practice, or should disdain, is a matter for individual judgment. I am just about on the borderline of being unable to enjoy any book in which egotistical self-inflation is elevated to acceptable conduct: the end justifying the means.

Since most readers are accustomed, through the brainwashing produced by contemporary fiction in book, film and television, to accept disrespect for the rights of others, I imagine my ruminations on the subject will be irrelevant to the enjoyment the average "cozy" reader can expect from Green's novel. Her heroine has substance, the plot interest, the puzzle adequate.

The scenes are all locations in Manhattan, none involve the complex organizational structures, which keep the Great City humming, but rather people in the homes and shops that mark the urban setting. The heroine also has her Inspector Piper, an old hand in the NYC police force, who somehow manages to accept her clear acts of Obstruction of Justice and general failure to cooperate with the organizational needs of law enforcement agencies.

Over-all, I would estimate that the average "cozy" reader will appreciate the virtues of the book and dismiss the unimportant vintage elements which speak of a somewhat older New York. A greater degree of pleasure will be enjoyed if one keeps in mind the role-playing expected of women a century ago.

This was one of my famous Kindle freebies. Obviously, the cover is the standard, you got it for free so don't complain, cover. No rating required. I just consider it the classic, encyclopedia variety; clean & eye catching by its own right.

I loved this book. Miss Butterworth, the single, older lady with a keen eye for detail, is the perfect behind the radar star. Mr. Gryce, the crotchety old detective you can't help but like, is her perfect partner.

This book is another late 1800's miracle. Change some of the language and you could turn these two into a modern day Tracy/Hepburn. The dry wit has aged like a fine wine; and the mystery...well let's just say this super sleuth was stumped to nearly the end. There were several moments I believed I had figured out the whodunnit, only to quickly discover I was dead wrong. I did finally get it...but only a few pages before the unveiling.

It is absolutely worth it, even if you pay for the paperback. Anna Katharine Green was a lady ahead of her time. I look forward to reading more of her work!

This High Quality Paperback edition is the first I've purchased, and had I been familiar with the format I think I would have bought a different edition. The book is the size of a standard sheet of copy or typing paper (~8"x11"), which I think is a bit large for a paperback book--but my fault for not reading the description more carefully. The pages look "typed," not "printed." It's not so easy to read as the usual fonts seen in books, and coupled with the size of the book, well, as I said, I think I would have chosen a different edition. Excellent story though!