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

Considered "The American Agatha Christie", Rinehart outsold Christie in their mutual lifetime through 1958 when she died. Her first book, The Circular Staircase, may have paved the way for The Mysterious Affair at Styles as the second does Agatha's Tommy and Tuppence series, which combined a thriller and mystery with a love match.

A charming mystery, romance, and more set in an old traditional house in New York City in the late 19th century with servants and all, much like Agatha Christie mysteries set on the 1920s in England. Rinehart was called "The American Agatha Christie" by The New York Times and LA Times, and Rinehart outsold her in their mutual lifetime until Rinehart died in 1958.

Dangerous Days opens in a still-neutral America, though within a year, the country will have joined the European alliance against the Central Powers in the First World War. Clayton Spencer, a successful industrialist and owner of a munitions plant, finds himself facing several problems: not only anarchism and German sabotage, but also the prospect of a deteriorating marriage and of a son who all too often shares his mother's frivolous and essentially self-concerned point of view.

A beautiful girl seeks the help of an attorney when her father vanishes. Soon, her aunt also disappears from a locked house in the dead of the night. The search leads to the infamous White Cat, a nightclub frequented by crooked politicians and now, murder.

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.

An intrigue tale of Americans in Europe studying, perfecting their skills in music and medicine and more as career hopes collide with romance and mystery. A tale written before so many Americans such as Hemingway and Fitzgerald went to Paris for the same reasons.

From the "American Agatha Christie" comes a spectacular mystery equal to The Mystery of Roger Ackroyd and Witness for the Prosecution.

Rachel Innes, una solterona madura y avispada, alquila la gran mansión de Sunnyside para pasar las vacaciones estivales. Durante su estancia allí, empieza a sospechar de la existencia de un fantasma que merodea por el lugar. Todo se complica cuando el cadáver de Arnold Armstrong, hijo del banquero Paul Armstrong, el propietario de Sunnyside, aparece al pie de la escalera de caracol situada en un extremo de la casa. Se inicia la investigación policial y se va desvelando el pasado de la familia Armstrong y los misterios que se esconden en Sunnyside.

A cozy mystery and romance set in early 20th-century America similar to Sinclair Lewis’ landmark work Main Street, but with a softer touch and mysteries to carry the work forward.

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.

Mary Roberts Rinehart's name is synonomous with well-crafted mystery, and this novel, which combines both mystery and adventure, shows Rinehart's tremendously vivid powers as a storyteller.

There are so many kinds of love: romantic, filial, spiritual. The following stories by Mary Roberts Rinehart present all sorts of love. Many of the stories take place in hospitals, and two involve trans-Atlantic steam travel. Many have a light heart at their core, while some may induce the wonderment of social issues of their time and of ours. All end with an element of hope and happiness.

Mary Roberts Rinehart was an American writer, most well-known for her mystery novels. She was often called the American Agatha Christie, though her first novel, The Circular Staircase, was published years before Christie's. The Circular Staircase is as complex a mystery as anyone could wish for, full of twists and turns, mysterious intruders, a murder and kidnapping, bank failure, all revolving around the sinister staircase itself.

An older woman of the elite class has lots of money and abundant courage and determination. Miss Cornelia Van Gorder wants some adventure in her life, so she rents a large mansion to see what she can stir up. She moves in with her niece and an unpredictable Irish maid and is confronted by an embezzlement problem at the owner’s bank. But that’s just the beginning of troubles, because a murderous masked criminal known as The Bat is using the mansion as a hideout.

Precocious 17-year-old Bab, with a sizeable sense of the romantic and an over-developed sense of the dramatic, shares how these traits get her into continuous scrapes via school themes, journals, and articles meant for publication. Managing an allowance is easy - isn't buying a car to save on shoe repair fiscally responsible? Is the family's butler a spy for Germany? Set against the backdrop of the first World War, these humorous tales highlight how little has changed in the past century with regard to a young girl's finding her place in the world.

This is perhaps Mary Roberts Rinehart's most famous story. Wealthy spinster Rachel Innes is persuaded by her niece and nephew, Gertrude and Halsey, to take a house in the country for the summer. Rachel is unaware that the house holds a secret, and soon unexplained happenings and murder follow.

Natalie Spencer was giving a dinner. She was not an easy hostess. Like most women of futile lives, she lacked a sense of proportion, and the small and unimportant details of the service absorbed her. Such conversation as she threw at random, to right and left, was trivial and distracted. Yet, the dinner was an unimportant one. It had been given with an eye more to the menu than to the guest list, which was characteristic of Natalie's mental processes.

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.

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.

A rip-roaring mystery and romance about a girl in the shade because her older sister can't get married, so is kept a child rather than being permitted to come out as a debutant and woman. Bab keeps them all jumping while trying to do right by everyone though often causing trouble instead. Bravely, she stands up to the bad guys and saves them all. Great fun with wit, wisdom, and irony along the way.