When I started reading this one, at first I thought that I was reading an account where it all began with Ms. Jane Marple. And it would have been so apt too - because I had just read about where it all ends for Hercule Poirot. The protagonist had an uncanny resemblance to Ms. Marple, or so it seemed at the beginning. A spinster who is thrust in the middle of a mystery, groping her way about in an amateurish way, only to hone her instincts later. But an appearance of a nephew and niece soon put paid to this notion of mine. Indeed, the protagonist turned out to be one Ms. Rachel Innes who rents a place, Sunnyside, with the idea of spending an entire summer there quietly. But as it always happens - man proposes, God disposes. A search on the net revealed that 'Mary Roberts Rinehart' is an American writer, and not a pseudo-name of Agatha Christie, as I had mistakenly assumed after finding this novel along with Christie's other novels somewhere on Google Drive.
Sure, there are rumors of ghosts prowling about at night in Sunnyside but Ms. Rachel doesn't pay any attention despite the fact that her trusted maid, Liddy, isn't too fond of supernatural visitors. There is some trouble in finding servants and the only butler that they are able to recruit, because he has been in the employ of the owners of the place (the Armstrongs), insists on sleeping at the lodge on the premises at night instead of in the house. That night Ms. Rachel and Liddy see someone sneaking a peek into the house. Alarmed, they make sure the place is bolted down tight but in the middle of the night they hear a crash somewhere inside and find a mysterious cuff-link along with a picture that has been dislocated from the wall in the morning. Ms. Rachel is relieved when her nephew Hasley and niece Gertrude come to stay with her - though they bring along a friend, Bailey, who is a stranger to her. But things don't improve much, in fact, they get positively worse because at night they hear someone trying to get into the house and then the sound of a revolver going off. A stranger is found dead at the foot of the staircase, Hasley and Bailey are nowhere to be seen and Gertrude isn't willing to say much. Things take a sinister turn when it is revealed that the murdered person is the son of the owners of Sunnyside. A series of events follows and shatters Ms. Rachel's remaining hopes of finding peace and solitude at Sunnyside.
You know what I most liked about this novel? Of course, there is the hint of the supernatural that grabs us by the collar right from the beginning. There is that. But even more than that, I loved the old-world charm that it brings forth in abundance. The times when people would close down their houses and head somewhere for the summer. The spacious summer places with luscious gardens and plenty of open space to trek about. An old town where everyone knows everyone else. Busy mornings spent in going to town for shopping nothing in particular and quiet, starlit nights where silence is broken only by the whistle of the train skirting the sleepy village. Lazy breakfasts, an army of servants (maids, parlor-maids, cooks, butlers, housekeepers, laundresses, drivers), people driving around in hacks and buggies and long blissful moments of blessed solitude. Does anyone live like that anymore? Can't help but wish that I was born in that era :-)
Sure, there are rumors of ghosts prowling about at night in Sunnyside but Ms. Rachel doesn't pay any attention despite the fact that her trusted maid, Liddy, isn't too fond of supernatural visitors. There is some trouble in finding servants and the only butler that they are able to recruit, because he has been in the employ of the owners of the place (the Armstrongs), insists on sleeping at the lodge on the premises at night instead of in the house. That night Ms. Rachel and Liddy see someone sneaking a peek into the house. Alarmed, they make sure the place is bolted down tight but in the middle of the night they hear a crash somewhere inside and find a mysterious cuff-link along with a picture that has been dislocated from the wall in the morning. Ms. Rachel is relieved when her nephew Hasley and niece Gertrude come to stay with her - though they bring along a friend, Bailey, who is a stranger to her. But things don't improve much, in fact, they get positively worse because at night they hear someone trying to get into the house and then the sound of a revolver going off. A stranger is found dead at the foot of the staircase, Hasley and Bailey are nowhere to be seen and Gertrude isn't willing to say much. Things take a sinister turn when it is revealed that the murdered person is the son of the owners of Sunnyside. A series of events follows and shatters Ms. Rachel's remaining hopes of finding peace and solitude at Sunnyside.
You know what I most liked about this novel? Of course, there is the hint of the supernatural that grabs us by the collar right from the beginning. There is that. But even more than that, I loved the old-world charm that it brings forth in abundance. The times when people would close down their houses and head somewhere for the summer. The spacious summer places with luscious gardens and plenty of open space to trek about. An old town where everyone knows everyone else. Busy mornings spent in going to town for shopping nothing in particular and quiet, starlit nights where silence is broken only by the whistle of the train skirting the sleepy village. Lazy breakfasts, an army of servants (maids, parlor-maids, cooks, butlers, housekeepers, laundresses, drivers), people driving around in hacks and buggies and long blissful moments of blessed solitude. Does anyone live like that anymore? Can't help but wish that I was born in that era :-)
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