Of the five novels I inherited from my grandmother, the second one that I read was The Door, by Mary Roberts Rinehart. She was an American mystery writer, roughly contemporary with Agatha Christie.
It has a cool cover design, but has gotten a bit faded over the years. But I love a good mystery story! And this one was pretty good. The tone was exactly what I would expect from a detective novel published in 1930.
The story is narrated by a wealthy, middle-aged woman, who lives a fairly quiet life. She isn’t married, has no kids, but has a good relationship with her extended family. Then, the woman who has been the family nurse is discovered dead — murdered. And a bunch of other mysterious intrigue comes to light.
Sadly, when I got near the end of the book, I discovered that the last couple of pages were missing. Which meant that the last page I could read was right in the middle of the detective explaining how they figured out who committed the crime. But he hadn’t quite got to the part where he said who it was. It’s not quite old enough to be public domain, and my local library doesn’t have it. So, I don’t actually know who the murderer was yet.
But I have found some of her other books that are public domain, and have read a few more. Not all of her books are murder mysteries. Some just center around mysterious events, or lean towards romance. I’ve liked The Circular Staircase and K the best of what I’ve read.
At one point, this book also belonged to a Bonnie Ferguson, of Preston, Idaho. Another little mystery.
CactusWriter 