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Roy Jacobsen suggested that I improve my education <\/strong>in classic mystery stories by reading The Red House<\/a><\/em> by A. A. Milne (yes, that <\/em>A. A. Milne). My previous knowledge of it was confined to the analysis contained in Raymond Chandler\u2019s essay, \u201cThe Simple Art of Murder.\u201d He found it wanting in almost every respect.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t hate the book, but I tend to agree with Chandler overall. I think that might be largely a function of history, though. The book\u2019s central \u201ctrick,\u201d surprising to readers in 1922, seemed fairly obvious to me, having read pretty extensively in the corpus of detective fiction from before and after this work. Also I may have gotten the solution from Chandler, but I’m pretty sure I’d forgotten it.<\/p>\n Mark Ablett, wealthy owner of The Red House, which sits on a large estate in England, receives a surprise visit from his long-lost brother, a wastrel recently returned from years in Australia. Voices from his office indicate a fight between the brothers, there is a gunshot, and when the locked door is opened by his secretary, the rascal brother is found dead. Mark, meanwhile, has vanished.<\/p>\n By pure chance, Tony Gillingham, a friend of one of Mark\u2019s house guests, Bill Beverly, shows up just after the murder. More or less to amuse themselves, Tony and Bill stay on to play Holmes and Watson, and figure out what happened to Mark.<\/p>\n My main problem with The Red House<\/em>, as I said, was that I figured out the trick of the thing well before the end. After that, I got impatient with the amateur sleuths, who talked, and talked, and talked, and operated in the most leisurely fashion imaginable.<\/p>\n The Red House<\/em> is worth reading for its importance in the history of detective fiction, and it\u2019s amusing enough at times (though not, I think, as amusing as the author thinks). There\u2019s nothing whatever in the way of objectionable content \u2013 on the contrary, everyone is irreproachably proper in speech and deportment, except for the small matter of shooting someone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Roy Jacobsen suggested that I improve my education in classic mystery stories by reading The Red House by A. A. Milne (yes, that A. A. Milne). My previous knowledge of it was confined to the analysis contained in Raymond Chandler\u2019s essay, \u201cThe Simple Art of Murder.\u201d He found it wanting in almost every respect. I … Continue reading ‘The Red House Mystery,’ by A. A. Milne<\/span>