SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: June 6, 2023] The Red House Mystery
In Peter Swanson’s mystery Eight Perfect Murders, his narrator makes a list of eight perfects murders in fiction–not the best books, just the perfect setup for murder. These books are:
Agatha Christie’s A. B. C. Murders, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, Ira Levin’s Death Trap, A. A. Milne’s Red House Mystery, Anthony Berkeley Cox’s Malice Aforethought, James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity, John D. Macdonald’s The Drowner, and Donna Tartt’s A Secret History.
And yes, A.A. Milne, the writer of Winnie the Pooh, is one of those authors. Swanson’s narrator kind of dismisses the story saying that it’s a quaint mystery and that the murder is perfect (meaning the killer would never get caught), but almost with an asterisk.
What’s all that about?
Well, the story is set in an English country manor, the Red House. The kind of place where other rich folk would come to stay for a few weeks, drinking, playing gold and generally enjoying themselves as rich English folk apparently did at the turn of the century. The owner of the house is Mark Ablett. He is a single man. However, he informally adopted his younger cousin as an opportunity to pay forward a good deed that was done to him when he was a young lad with limited propsects. The boy (who is now in his late 20s) is named Cayley and is (now that he has been formally educated) more or less Mark’s right-hand man. Mark doesn’t seem to do anything without consulting Cayley.
Mark is generally liked (he is no snob), but he can go on a bit. As the book opens, Mark is hosting some people: Major Rumbold, a retired soldier; Bill Beverley, a youngish man about town. There was also Ruth Norris, an actress “who took herself seriously as an actress and, on her holidays, seriously as a golfer.” Finally there was Betty Calladine (18 and eligible) and her widowed mother (keen to get her settled). (more…)
I Just Read About That... 