検索キーワード： 著者 "Mary Roberts Rinehart" すべてのカテゴリー

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.

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?

New York socialite Kit McNair decides to host an impromptu dinner party at the home of her friend, Jimmy Wilson, to cheer him up following his divorce. What could possibly go wrong?

Hilda Adams' life as a nurse has become a bit dull. As she approaches 30, she sees long, monotonous years of trained obedience to orders ahead of her. But a rascally patient, a police detective, sees in her the intelligence and discretion of a born criminal investigator. People confide in a private nurse; she could unearth clues that can crack a case. Her first case is the disappearance of Clare March, a wealthy debutante who has been missing without a trace for a month.

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.

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.

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.

Crescent Place was once a peaceful country green surrounded by five tasteful suburban houses and populated by polite, responsible citizens. But as the city enveloped it, the residents built a gate to keep the world out. With each passing year, the subdivision grew stranger and stranger - until it began to look like a time capsule of the 1890s.

The Birches was one of the grand mansions of the 1920s, with a ballroom, tennis courts, and, of course, a swimming pool. But after the crash of '29, when Lois and Judith's father killed himself to escape his debts, the family turned the summer home into a fulltime retreat from the world. Decades later, Judith is the queen of New York society, a fast-living beauty whose nerves are beginning to fray, while Lois still lives in the dilapidated old mansion, writing mystery novels to pay the bills. She is about to encounter a mystery of her own.

 In an elaborate house known as the Cloisters, Maud Wainwright rules supreme. The queen of society in the small town of Beverly, she has a table long enough to seat 100, and she keeps an iron grip on the guest list. Her right-hand woman is Pat Abbott, a local girl who is beautiful, innocent, and kind. Pat has no idea how cutthroat high society can be, but she's about to get a deadly first lesson. 

Elizabeth Bell runs a quiet household, with no family and no more than the usual number of servants. She passes her time thinking about crime and working on her biography of a relative. When a young cousin comes to stay, life in the house becomes uncharacteristically lively. First, cousin Judy burns a hole in Miss Bell's desk. Next, they spy a burglar on the staircase - a shadowy figure who vanishes without a trace. And finally, Sarah, the nurse, takes the dogs for a walk and never returns.

The house called Sunset has been Marcia's summer home for her entire life. Both of her parents died there, and she and her brother spent their youth exploring its rambling hallways and seaside grounds. They love the old house, but Marcia's sister-in-law has never taken to it. Juliette loathes the sea, and soon comes to loathe her husband as well. After they divorce, Juliette pays a final visit to Sunset, demanding alimony. She is there for a few tense days before she disappears. It takes them a week to find her body.

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.

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.

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.

From "The American Agatha Christie" comes a rollicking insightful tale with fun and suspense along the way: a mystery and romance revolving around a health resort with different points of view about what is most appropriate as a mission and will keep it solvent and profitable.

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.

This third Rinehart murder combines a mystery with a boy-girl romance, an old lady stepping out, political payoffs, and more by a woman The New York Times and LA Times both call “The American Agatha Christie” and who outsold Christie in their mutual lives.

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.