Showing results by author "Mary Roberts Rinehart" in All Categories

Winter 1914. Sara Lee Kennedy reads the newspaper account of the war in Europe and is appalled. Others in her sheltered Pennsylvania home are interested only in her coming marriage to solid, self-centered, Harvey. Struggling with compassion, Sara Lee feels compelled to help the suffering Belgian Army whose country is overrun by Germans. She defies her parents and travels alone to the front lines to help anyway she can. It is there she meets Henri, a Belgian officer.

Out of funds and longing for a sea voyage, young doctor Ralph Leslie jumps at the chance to sign aboard a luxurious millionaire's yacht as steward of the After House. His job is easy sailing until one summer night, when the dream voyage suddenly becomes a nightmare of blood and terror. One of the ship's officers is thrown overboard; another one is killed with an axe. As panic sets in on the boat, only the young doctor remains calm enough to try to solve the murders.

“This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous.” So begins The Circular Staircase, a book which has been hailed as the best novel by the most important American woman mystery writer of our time.

Rinehart's The Man in Lower Ten, the first American detective novel to make the best seller list, follows the investigation of the murder of a man in a sleeping car on a train. In this fast-paced thriller, the investigating detective builds up a network of clues that absolutely incriminate three entirely different people---only one of whom can be guilty.

This mystery is part of the famous "Had-I-But-Known School" of mysteries founded by Mary Roberts Rinehart with the 1908 publication of her first work, The Circular Staircase. The story deals with civic corruption, a popular theme of early American mysteries. Stories like this anticipate the hard-boiled school to come. So does Rinehart's realistic style, which does not gloss over life's problems.

The intrepid private nurse/investigator is charged with the care of two young boys in a home full of conundrums. Both parents are fearful but refuse to leave their home and won't say why. The rugs have been rolled up and the furniture piled into the middle of each room. Their anxiety is catching, as Miss Adams too furtively watches for danger as she searches for clues. Why, she wonders, do they lock every door in the house? And who or what is the menace that terrifies them?

Twenty-year-old Halsey and 24-year-old Gertrude, nephew and niece of Rachel Inness, a well-to-do middle-aged spinster, talk Rachel into renting a large country house for the summer. Mysterious happenings occur the first night they are there, something or someone falls down the stairs in the middle of the night. A man is dead at the foot of the circular staircase. Now the question arises as to who he is and why was he in the house.

This ghostly, sometimes ghastly, collection includes "The Buckled Bag" by Mary Roberts Rinehart, "The Tapestried Room" or "The Lady in the Saque" by Sir Walter Scott, "The New Catacomb" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and "The Lost Ghost" by Mary Wilkins Freeman.

The blood-stained rope and towel, the stray slipper, the broken knife - and the disappearance of the lovely Jennie Brice - were enough to convince Mrs. Pittman that murder had been committed in her boarding house. The police, however, were another matter. Without a tangible body, there could be no official murder charge.

Rachel Innes rents a summer house that is full of hidden rooms and sinister happenings. Chilling horror, romance, and rollicking humor permeate this suspenseful mystery novel.

The darkening storm of the first World War threatens to tear apart the lives of a group of friends. At the eye of the storm is Clayton Spencer, an ambitious businessman, who must risk everything to be with the woman he loves.

Was that dear little lady Emily Benton guilty of murder, or was the written confession discovered by her tenant actually trumped up? This one will keep you guessing!

Aunt Rachel heard something last night. Gertrude heard it as well. Tonight, shots ring out, and a dead body appears at the foot of the circular staircase. Now it is up to Rachel to piece together what happened, as she weaves her way through the circular statements of paranoid staff, secret passages, and even suspicions of ghosts.

Mary Roberts Rinehart, known for her best-selling mystery novels such as The Circular Staircase published in 1907, earned a reputation as “the American Agatha Christie” through the success of her novels. Yet Rinehart was also a WWI correspondent. After convincing her editor at The Saturday Evening Post to send her to the Belgian front, and armed with letters of introduction, her status as a well-known writer and member of the American Red Cross, as well as plenty of fearless initiative, she became the first American to report from the front.

Dive into the gripping account of an American authors journey to the heart of war-torn Europe in January 1915. Serving as a war correspondent in Belgium for The Saturday Evening Post, she shares her raw, unfiltered perspective of war. It is not just about colossal armies clashing in frenzied battles. It is the bewildered young soldier on a stretcher, the mother carrying her shell-wounded child, the majestic horses awaiting death in burning buildings, the best of a generation hungry, battered, knee-deep in icy waters. It is the old woman, lighting a candle before the Mater Dolorosa, offering up...

An essay on writing by Mary Roberts Rinehart. Rinehart, a contemporary of Agatha Christie, was a prolific writer in her time. This essay gives fascinating insight into her process and a glimpse into her thoughts on writing, which is, in fact, work.

At a bustling neighborhood social club, a medium is invited as the evenings highlight. The medium recounts a gruesome tale about a violent death that leaves the attendees on edge. Later, the uncanny prediction unfolds as two members are summoned to a nearby house where a mysterious murder has taken place. Intrigued and unnerved, the club members set out on a quest to uncover the truth. Mary Roberts Rinehart artfully combines mystery and social comedy in this gripping novella. (Summary by Zach Hoyt)

Mary Roberts Rinehart -- "America's Agatha Christie," as she used to be called -- set this story in a New York suburban town, shortly after the end of the first world war. Dick Livingstone is a young, successful doctor, who in the course of events becomes engaged to Elizabeth Wheeler. But there is a mystery about his past, and he thinks himself honor-bound to unravel it before giving himself to her in marriage. In particular, a shock of undetermined origin has wiped out his memory prior to roughly the last decade. Rinehart, who presumably had been reading, or reading about, the then popular ...

When English professor William A. Porter unexpectedly inherits a grand seaside mansion from his late Uncle Horace, his curiosity is piqued by the unexplained circumstances surrounding his uncles death. Along with his wife and niece, he decides to spend the summer in the propertys lodge, renting out the main house. As darkness falls, the quiet seaside neighborhood takes a sinister turn, with strange occurrences and eerie events becoming the norm. At the heart of these mysteries is an ominous red lamp, a subject of local folklore and believed to cast a malevolent spell. Can Professor Porter ...

The task seemed simple enough deliver bank notes to Pittsburgh and obtain a confirmation statement from John Gilmore. However, when McKnight backs out to visit Alison West in Richmond, his law partner, Lawrence Blakeley, is thrust into the mission. Everything seems to be going smoothly until a shocking revelation on the train ride home. Blakeley awakens to find his clothes and the bank notes have vanished from his sleeping carriage. The night takes a darker turn when a murder occurs in a nearby berth and the weapon is found under Blakeleys pillow, making him a prime suspect.