The Red House Mystery

About the book

Antony Gillingham arrives at a country house expecting to visit a friend and instead encounters the immediate confusion surrounding a shooting. With Bill Beverley as his companion, he begins examining explanations that the household and police appear ready to accept. Milne gives the investigation a conversational ease: observations become questions, possible solutions are tried out, and familiar features of the house acquire unexpected importance. The amateur partnership keeps the reader close to the process of forming and revising a theory. Social manners and the habits of guests provide a comic setting without removing the seriousness of the crime. The book offers the particular pleasure of a bounded mystery, where a small number of people and places can be rearranged into several competing accounts.

• Amateur detection
• Appearance and evidence
• Friendship

Why read it

For the companionable pleasure of following two amateurs as they test a tidy mystery's untidy details.

English text