The Red House mystery

156 pages

English language

Published Nov. 3, 1998 by Dover Publications.

ISBN:
978-0-486-40129-4
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OCLC Number:
37890344

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4 stars (9 reviews)

This is probably one of the top classics of "golden age" detective fiction. Anyone who's read any mystery novels at all will be familiar with the tropes -- an English country house in the first half of the twentieth century, a locked room, a dead body, an amateur sleuth, a helpful sidekick, and all the rest.

It's a clever story, ingenious enough in its way, and an iconic example of Agatha Christie / Dorothy Sayers -type murder mysteries. If you've read more than a few of those kinds of books, you might find this one a little predictable, but it's fun despite that.

It's particularly of note, however, because Raymond Chandler wrote about it extensively in his essay "The Simple Art of Murder." After praising it as "an agreeable book, light, amusing in the Punch style, written with a deceptive smoothness that is not as easy as it looks," he …

65 editions

Review of 'The Red House Mystery (Large Print Edition)' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Well, it started off slow; my experience with the author AA Milne is, of course, Winnie the Pooh. This is totally different :-).
When I finally got into the fact that this was a mystery, and not a children's book, I started totally enjoying it. It was clever and surprising. He drew from the Sherlock Holmes idea a lot, even to the extent that one of the characters was playfully referred to as "Watson", and the twists and misleading aspects were engaging and startling. Who would ever have guessed that he was so diverse…

reviewed The Red House mystery by A. A. Milne (Dover mystery classics)

Review of 'The Red House mystery' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Milne is better taken in smaller doses. His short stories (both for kids and adults) are great, but this novel suffers from a lack of direction in the middle and a rushed conclusion. Still, given his writing style it was enjoyable enough to download from Project Gutenberg and read in short snippets while I was otherwise indisposed.

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4 stars