![]() ![]() Halsey and Gertrude are now 20 and 24, respectively, and they’ve talked their aunt into renting a house in the country for the summer. Rachel is a spinster who has had custody of her orphaned niece and nephew since they were children. The main character, Rachel Innes, is engaging despite her tendency to spout had-I-but-known-ish phrases, but she’s overwhelmed by clutter. She mostly makes it work, but I don’t think many others could.Īnd this isn’t Rinehart’s best work. Anyway, it’s a style I wouldn’t want to encounter in the hands of any author with less of a sense of humor than Rinehart. Please, someone, give me a better way to phrase that. Had-I-But-Known mysteries are the ones with first person narrators who are constantly saying things like “I would never have gone if I knew then what I know now,” and “this would prove to be important later” and other irritating things along the same lines - things that are apt to make readers who are caught up in the story…un-catch. It might be the first one I read about, though, because Rinehart is remembered primarily as the originator of the Had-I-But-Known school of mystery fiction, and The Circular Staircase is the prime example. ![]() I decided after my second Mary Roberts Rinehart book that I was a fan, and The Circular Staircase is, I think, my fifth. ![]()
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