Review: The Red House Mystery

The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An enjoyable cosy mystery by an author much better known for his children's books (though he started out as a playwright). It's a pity he didn't go on to turn this into a series, because it's a cleverly constructed puzzle and the characters are fun.

It's very much in the vein of other mysteries of the time (1922), set in an English country house with several stock characters - several of whom are moved offstage early on: the gruff retired army officer and the widow and her pretty daughter play essentially no role in the plot, and the overly dramatic actress very little, and that in flashback. It opens with the viewpoint of the servants, somewhat unusually, but they are stereotypically limited in their perspective and soon drop out of the narrative almost entirely.

What we're left with is a young man, Bill Beverley, of more or less the Wodehouse type, who appears to have no occupation apart from visiting country houses; his friend Tony Gillingham, who happens to turn up immediately after the murder to see Bill, and becomes the amateur detective more or less on a lark; Cayley, the cousin of the owner of the house, who acts as his general factotum; and a characterless police inspector who comes across as competent but limited, though he can hardly be blamed for not having Gillingham's opportunities to observe from inside the house.

The house's owner, Mark, has disappeared, following the appearance and almost immediate murder of his brother Robert from Australia, and the prevailing theory is that he killed Robert (perhaps accidentally) and fled, probably with Cayley's collusion. But as Gillingham's suspicions stack up, and he pokes around with the help of his loyal Watson, Bill, it turns out something more bizarre has taken place.

I did guess the main reveal before it happened, but I didn't figure out how it could have been achieved, so from that aspect it's a satisfying mystery. It's told in a capable and often amusing voice, and if there were more like it I would happily read them. The characters have little depth, but that was the style of mysteries at the time, and the plot is clever and makes sense.

View all my reviews