Fai clic su di un'immagine per andare a Google Ricerca Libri.
Sto caricando le informazioni... The Wintringham Mysterydi Anthony Berkeley
Sto caricando le informazioni...
Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. Audiobook 5-star narration from Mike Grady. I'll be looking for more of his narrations. I found the story itself a bit confusing as I kept losing track of the characters when they switched between surname and forename. This was possibly because I was listening in 'episodes' as I was out walking. I did feel that it was quite drawn out with each character in turn being highlighted as 'the villain' and then dismissed. I don't know whether I will listen to this again. This mystery is billed as the one that even Agatha Christie couldn’t guess—it was first published serially and there was a prize available to whoever could guess the solution. I did not guess the solution but found this book a perfectly acceptable Golden Age mystery. I laughed out loud at a couple of places, and the story in general rattled along smoothly. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
Republished for the first time in nearly 95 years, a classic winter country house mystery by the founder of the Detection Club, with a twist that even Agatha Christie couldn't solve! Stephen Munro, a demobbed army officer, reconciles himself to taking a job as a footman to make ends meet. Employed at Wintringham Hall, the delightful but decaying Sussex country residence of the elderly Lady Susan Carey, his first task entails welcoming her eccentric guests to a weekend house-party, at which her bombastic nephew - who recognises Stephen from his former life - decides that an after-dinner séance would be more entertaining than bridge. Then Cicely disappears! With Lady Susan reluctant to call the police about what is presumably a childish prank, Stephen and the plucky Pauline Mainwaring take it upon themselves to investigate. But then a suspicious death turns the game into an altogether more serious affair... This classic winter mystery incorporates all the trappings of the Golden Age - a rambling country house, a séance, a murder, a room locked on the inside, with servants, suspects and alibis, a romance - and an ingenious puzzle. First published as a 30-part newspaper serial in 1926 - the year The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was published, The Wintringham Mystery was written by Anthony Berkeley, founder of the famous Detection Club. Also known as Cicely Disappears, the Daily Mirror ran the story as a competition with a prize of £500 (equivalent to £30,000 today) for anyone who guessed the solution correctly. Nobody did - even Agatha Christie entered and couldn't solve it. Can you? Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
Discussioni correntiNessunoCopertine popolari
Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)823.912Literature English English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1901-1945Classificazione LCVotoMedia:
Sei tu?Diventa un autore di LibraryThing. |
In The Wintringham Mystery, we begin with our protagonist, Stephen Munro, who, having returned from military service, squanders his fortune and consequently finds himself impoverished. The opening scene consists of Munro relating to Bridger, his valet (and former orderly, in the military) that he has to let him go as he can no longer afford to pay his salary. Instead, Munro has - horror of horrors - found himself a job, as a footman, in the house of Lady Susan Carey, an elderly, wealthy woman with a country estate. In a deeply uncomfortable scene that was clearly written to be funny, Munro repeatedly mocks Bridger for failing to react with adequate shock and astonishment to this fall in his employer's status; today, we know that Bridger's lack of response may not only be due to the emotional deficits that Munro attributes to him, but also to the fact that he is currently employed by Munro, and bound by conventions of class that will become more apparent as we go on. If I'm to be uncharitable, I could also say that Bridger isn't particularly shocked by the concept of working for a living, more generally. In a touching display of devotion (or lack of self esteem), Bridger refuses to take Munro's recommendation letter and find himself another valet position, and instead accompanies him to Lady Susan's house, where he takes, I imagine, a substantial paycut, to work as under-gardener.
At Lady Susan's, Munro has difficulty adjusting to being a footman, after having been a gentleman of leisure. The hours are long; the butler, Mr. Martin, does not take a shine to him, and Lady Susan informs him that his name is now William ("We always call the footman 'William'). Lady Susan's upcoming weekend party entails a lot of work, and Munro is clearly unaccustomed to work. When the butler, Martin, lists out his duties, Munro marvels, "It seems to me that the footman's life is not an idle one." Oh, I wanted to smack him! His life is further complicated by the arrival of two people he knew from his former life: Freddie Venables, Lady Susan's nephew and Munro's former classmate from school, and Pauline Mainwaring, his former fiance. In response to Munro's fall from status, they respond differently. Freddie continues to awkwardly treat Munro as an old friend even as Munro serves him drinks, attempts to valet him and carries his luggage; Freddie keeps getting in his way, treating Munro like an old friend (who happens to be cleaning silverware, I don't know) and drawing Lady Susan's ire. Pauline Mainwaring cuts him dead. It turns out she is engaged again, this time to a wealthy financier, who is naturally, Sir Julius Hammerstein, and in accordance with Golden Age Mystery writers' tendencies towards anti-semitism, described unkindly and with reference to all the usual stereotypes. At the garden party are a cast of characters with all sorts of motives and intentions. It doesn't take long before Freddie Venables blurts out to the others that Munro is one of them, albeit in footman's livery, having fallen on hard times. The result is an awkward, un-party like situation: Pauline unbends and chats with him normally, the others refuse to be valeted by one of their own class, unpacking their own clothes, and Munro speaks with as he would normally, even though he's dressed in a footman's livery.
The plot get started with two key developments. The first, is that Cicely, Lady Susan's beloved niece, vanishes. At the start of the book she is evidently distraught and upset about something undisclosed. She initially skips the party to go sailing with friends, but then changes her mind and returns. During an attempted seance (rich people goofing around), the lights are turned off, and when they come back on, she's disappeared. Meanwhile, the butler, increasingly resentful at the way Munro is treated with casual friendliness by the guests, unlike all the other servants, complains to Lady Susan about him. So does Sir Julius Hammerstein, who doesn't like his fiance, Pauline and her ex-fiance, Munro resuming a friendship. Lady Susan decides to solve both problems with one stone: she fires Munro as a footman and rehires him as a detective. Munro moves out of servants quarters into a bedroom in the same house and proceeds to spend the rest of the book ineptly investigating Cicely's disappearance, and trying to decide how he can have his Pauline back, when he's unable to support her in the lifestyle within which she (and he) were raised.
The resolution of the mystery is sufficiently twisty: when first published, the Mail offered prizes for anyone who could solve it before the last chapter was out, and among the unsuccessful applicants was Agatha Christie. While entertaining enough, it is difficult for the modern reader to get around the deep-rooted classism, resting on an implicit, unstated assumption about the intellectual and moral superiority of the rich (in case you were wondering, yes [spoilers for the ending