The Wintringham Mystery/Cicely Disappears

 

 

 

By: Anthony Berkeley, (A. Monmouth Platts, Tony Medawar - introduction; not included in this audio production)
Narrated by: Mike Grady
Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins

 

Publisher's Summary
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?

©2021 Anthony Berkeley, A. Monmouth Platts, Tony Medawar (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

(N.B. Originally serialized in The Daily Mirror in 1926 as The Wintringham Mystery, the book was published pseudonymously in 1927 under the title Cicely Disappears. Anthony Berkeley and A. Monmouth Platts are both pseudonyms of British author Anthony Cox. )

 

Thank you, T-A, for this one.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I loved the first chapter. Any Golden Age mystery that starts with the MC firing his butler because he has spent his way through his inheritance, is now dead broke and has taken a job as footman to some dowager can't be all bad -- and certainly can't be taking itself too seriously. Chapter one sets the tone. In spite of the absurd premise, the mystery is solid. It follows the "rules," leading us astray and serving up platters of red herring to keep us running in circles.

I wish there were more books by the author available on audio than the few I have found on Audible.

P.S. I like the cover.

 

Three Act Tragedy

 

 

 by Agatha Christie (read by Hugh Fraser) c. 1934

Agatha Christie Centenary Celebration read

 

 

 

Publisher's Summary

Sir Charles Cartwright should have known better than to allow 13 guests to sit down for dinner. For at the end of the evening one of them is dead - choked by a cocktail that contained no trace of poison.

Predictable, says Hercule Poirot, the great detective. But entirely unpredictable is that he can find absolutely no motive for murder...

©1934 Agatha Christie Limited (P)2002 HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

 

 

Go, Aggie! It isn't until the very end that you realize just how delightfully complicated this story is.

 

Charles was scumbag through and through. A sociopath and a psychopath -- manipulator of people and cold-blooded murderer -- responding to the whims of his gonads. Yes, yes, I am willing to find only the worst in Charles.

Not a fan of Egg. There was just something about her that bothered me (and her mother, too). Don't think I ever saw what she saw in him -- or why. She fell hook, line and sinker for his manipulating, his flattery and his fawning attention. She just never thought out what being married to a man thirty years her senior would mean 10, 20 years from now. Beautiful but not very perspicacious.

Satterthwaite was a dupe and Charles used him badly. Poor Satterthwaite.

Hastings was not missed; he had long since worn out his welcome in his role as unreliable narrator. His secret has been revealed so that by now the reader knows not to trust him. Yes, mystery novels are about deception and leading the reader astray but when you know who is doing the deceiving and how they always do it, it gets boring. No Hastings opens a whole new tool box -- and we have just gotten our first peek as to what is in it.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

by Stuart Turton (read by James Cameron Stewart)

Audible sale pile

 

 

 

Publisher's Summary

The rules of Blackheath: Evelyn Hardcastle will be murdered at 11:00 p.m. There are eight days and eight witnesses for you to inhabit. We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer. 

Understood? Then let's begin....

Evelyn Hardcastle will die. Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others....  

The most inventive debut of the year twists together a mystery of such unexpected creativity that it will leave listeners guessing until the very last second.

©2018 Stuart Turton (P)2018 Tantor

 

 

The 1920's country house mystery to end all 1920's country house mysteries

 

I have mixed emotions about this one. I loved the start of it: bang! You are off and running before you even have a chance to stick your toe in the water.  You are sucked in. You have no idea where you are or what is going on. You are completely disoriented -- just like the main character. I did not like the ending. I was disappointed.  It lacked verisimilitude. I didn't understand how the main character could make such an about-face, and because of spoilers, that is all I am going to say about the ending. I really don't want to give away one iota more of this story than I have already given.

While I was wishy-washy about his plot choices, I applaud his writing. He doesn't waste words and uses simile to his advantage. There is a lot of action in the book and that doesn't leave much room for florid description; he doesn't need it. Agatha Christie lovers may get a kick out of Turton's 2020 take on the 1920's country house mystery. Is he telling us that they are his version of Purgatory?

In the end, I think that Turton has a few pearls of wisdom for his audience, perhaps even a few words of advice. But again, we are getting to close to spoiler territory and I will leave you to decide for yourself.

The Murder at the Vicarage

 

by Agatha Christie ( read by Richard E. Grant) c. 1930

An "Agatha Christie Centenary Celebration" Read

 

 

In which we meet Miss Jane Marple

 

When the Colonel's dead body is found in the vicarage, the police investigate but it is Miss Marple, one of the town busybodies, who figures it out. 

This is just the kind of Agatha Christie story that I want to read. I like it when she sticks to mysteries and forgets about international intrigue, conspiracy and spies (which she really does not do well). I hope this is the continuing trend.

Four stars.

The Circular Staircase (Updated)

by Mary Roberts Rinehart,  (published 1908),  narrator Lorna Raver (published 2010)

I loved it and hated it at the same time. 

 

I picked this one up because it was one of the choices for a side-read for The Agatha Christie Centenary Read group that I am part of -- and because it is free for me with my Audible membership.

Would I recommend it? Yes, it is a bit of literary history. But not necessarily this audio version. It wasn't until I read the reviews on Audible that I figured out what bothered me about the read. It wasn't the story; it was the narrator. The vocal characterization that she chose for the protagonist -- and this is a first person narrative, so we hear the voice 90% of the time -- made her sound like she was in her eighties (or even older), when she was actually only in her 40s. I realized only after I finished that I had let the vocal interpretation control my interpretation of the story. 

Besides the facts that this is Mary Roberts Rinehart first book of a long career and pre-dates the publication of Ms. Christie's first book by 12 years, the other historical bit about the book is that it introduces a new approach to story telling that has been labeled "Had I But Known." It is a kind of foreshadowing that holds back information from both the reader and other characters. It works well in mysteries --if done right. Among other things, it is a way of prolonging the story. Overused in a tale, it can come across as too melodramatic -- which is what I thought as I read the book. 

 

 So, if you can get past the melodrama and the not quite stellar narrator, then by all means, enjoy!

 

UPDATE: There are actually five different recordings on Audible. The one I read and was so disappointed in was the freebie available in the Audible Plus Catalog and read by Lorna Raver. The other four by various readers are available for cash or credit. 

Villa in Italy

By Elizabeth Edmondson (Nicolette McKenzie)

(c) 2006

Delightful! A 'country house' mystery with no bodies and a happy ending. Just what I needed.

In the end, this turned out to be a solid 3 and half star read -- right where it should have landed.  I am sure that I will be back for more books by Ms Edmondson.