The chuckling fingers [Unknown Binding]

Mabel Seeley (Author)

Book Description

Weird and strange events are happening at the Heaton family estate on lake Superior in Minnesota. A boat is smashed, a bathrobe is slashed, a car moves on its own and people are murdered. As evidence points to insanity in her cousin Jacqueline, Ann tries to uncover who is really behind these terrible tricks. After a series of dead ends and terrifying experiences where no one can be trusted, this suspenseful mystery comes to a surprising and unpredictable end.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Mabel Seeley was enormously popular in the 1940's. Her novels were published by Doubleday in New York and distributed nationally by The Crime Club. The Chuckling Fingers was promoted as the mystery of the year in 1941. Both of our reprints, The Chuckling Fingers and The Beckoning Door, have great new cover paintings by St. Paul artist Paul S. Kramer. We recommend them for mystery lovers of all ages as she is Minnesota's answer to Agatha Christie! --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Other people may think they'd like to live their lives over, but not me-not if this last week is going to be in it. Out of what has just happened at the Fingers both Jacqueline and I got something worth keeping, but heaven defend me from ever again having to stand helplessly by while it becomes more and more apparent to almost everyone but me that the person I love most in the world is murderously insane. Heaven forbid that I ever again see a car moving like Frankenstein, of its own power and volition, carrying a secret burden into a lake, or that I ever again grasp an arm and feel that rigid marble chill or that I ever again have to look on while a blood-drenched shirt is ripped away from the terrible red hole a bullet makes in living flesh.

I never again want to know the panic of being up against evil coming out of a mind so much more skillful than mine that even the signs we did see-the acid in a bride's toilet kit, the burned matchsticks under a bed, the word scrawled with a child's blue chalk on rock- all just bogged us deeper in terror and despair. I never again want to have a flying figure come hurtling at me from an unlit staircase or wake in the morning to find my bathrobe slashed or stand endless hours facing a door, fighting a vicarious fight. Any time in my life is going to be too soon for me to want to feel again that I'm a member of a looming last-man's club, with death walking hooded in the night, relentless and remorseless and successful.

Someone, I suppose-some Heaton- will live on at Fiddler's Fingers. But it'll be all right with me to be away from that particular slash of water, that particular brush of wind, that near inhuman chuckle that came to sound like laughter at all law and right and civilization. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Unknown Binding
• ASIN: B00005VLLY
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,986,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great review of the book., August 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Chuckling Fingers (Hardcover)

This book is terrific, like a Nancy Drew for adults. It was written in 1941, prior to WW II and so is authentic in it's historical detail. The setting is the north woods of Minnesota, on the shore of Lake Superior at a family's summer estate in a pine forest.

Eerie, unexplained happenings occur that make this a true page-turner, culminating with a murder that took me by surprise. I couldn't put it down. There are enough red herrings and suspense to satisfy even the most fussy mystery buffs. The writing is also a breath of fresh air. The characters are well-developed, the plot is tight and the setting for the story fired my imagination.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More than just a plot..., December 22, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Chuckling Fingers (Hardcover)

Everyone expects a quality mystery story to have a clever plot with plenty of twists and turns along the way. If it's a "classic" mystery, one also expects the protagonist to be quirky but noble. If the story is more modern, one probably expects the heroine to be either feisty or hard-boiled. What one doesn't expect is lovable.

That's what sets Mabel Seeley apart from most other mystery writers past and present. Without allowing them to degenerate into soppiness or wimpiness, she lets her main characters be believeable and really decent people. As a reader, I find that I really care about these characters, and that's so refreshing.

The above is certainly true of Ann Gay, the heroine of this novel. Determined to extricate her close friend and relative Jacqueline from a perilous situation, she arrives in the Minnesota north woods just in time for that situation to change from threatening to truly murderous. Her struggle to determine just who can and who can not be trusted among all the friends, neighbors and relatives that fill out the cast is told in a gripping and suspenseful way.

So, why only four stars? Much as atmosphere and character rate much higher with me personally, I felt a little disappointed in the solution to this mystery. I saw it coming and was waiting for the explanation that would make it seem inevitable and right, but I just didn't feel the motivation was all that convincing.

This book was enough, however, to get me to seek out every other Mabel Seeley book I could find and I highly recommend it to those who are tired of the familiar and expected.